To Shoot, Or Not To Shoot That is Gibbs' Question
by Time4me2fly
Summary: Gibbs and his team are called upon to solve the murder of Good King Hamlet
1. Prelude 1, Scene 1

This is my first attempt at publishing a Fan Fic. Please be kind in your reviews... constructive criticism only.

I was watching a full-day NCIS Marathon, and as that was swirling around in my brain, I tried to spool down by reading a bit of Shakespeare. Going to sleep that night led to a very interesting 'paper bullets of the brain' as The Bard himself said (in a different play). I had to write it down... and a good friend of mine pressed me int sharing it.

So... Everything Shakespeare's characters say is straight from the copy of Hamlet I have on my bookshelf. I tried to stay as true to Team Gibbs as possible while still fitting them in to this time period. I used Shakespeare's Acts & Scenes, but since some of this story takes place when his cast isn't around, I hope I've made it clear where things fit in.

 **Standard Disclaimer... I don't own any of these wonderful characters... I'm merely borrowing them and taking them out for a bit of a romp.**

 **Prelude 1, Scene 1:**

The King Was Dead.

The announcement swarmed through the land. Good King Hamlet was dead. Found in his orchard, on his couch, taking his nap as he had every day of his reign. Queen Gertrude had been inconsolable. The Prince, Young Hamlet, had assured the nation in the way only a grieving young prince could, but if anyone would have asked, nobody could have put a finger on exactly what he'd reassured them about. The funeral the next day was going to be the event of the century.

Not if Ducky had anything to do about it.

"Jethro, I tell you, there's something odd about this situation! I was asked to look over King Hamlet's records after his last physical examination; there is simply no way a man of his health and vigor would succumb to death in such a manner!"

"What are you saying, Duck?" Gibbs had asked, blowing wood shavings off of his latest project; he was carving a new throne for the next King.

"I'm saying that there's something hinky going on here! I need you to investigate. Good King Hamlet's death is highly suspicious!"

Gibbs put down his tools. "All right; I'll look into it. I'll get clearance from the Director…" He paused as Ducky snorted. "I don't like the guy either, Duck."

"Director Polonius is a toad!" Ducky spat out. "A power-hungry, self-aggrandizing, weasily little toad! How on earth was he considered a proper candidate for such a lofty position?"

"The Prince is engaged to his daughter, Duck," Jethro reminded him.

"I'm sure the Prince, soon to be the next King of Denmark, would jump at the chance to find out the truth behind his father's death."

Gibbs heaved a sigh, leveling a firm gaze at his friend. "I'll see what I can do."

Ducky was appeased. "That's all I ask, Jethro."


	2. Prelude 1, Scene 2

**Prelude 1, Scene 2:**

It was easier than he'd expected. Director Polonius was at first horrified at the idea of allowing Physician Mallard to look upon the King at his most undignified, but after Gibbs reminded him, "You didn't appoint me Master of Security because you liked me, Sir. I was chosen for this position because you know my record." Gibbs then promised the toady, "If I can find out what happened… what _really_ happened, don't you think Prince Hamlet would like to know?"

When Polonius seemed to be considering, Gibbs added the final layer. "When he ascends the throne, I imagine he'll remember that you fought to find the truth behind his father's death."

The Director had polished the medals on his jacket as he let that sink in, and then gave tentative approval, provided the King would be ready for his internment later that evening. Gibbs made the appropriate gesture of respect, then turned and strode out of the Director's chambers.

Shaking his head at how easy it was to manipulate his Director, Gibbs sidestepped into an alcove as he heard footsteps ringing down the stone hallway. He watched as Polonius' son, Laertes, passed him, knocked on his father's door, and disappeared behind it. Laertes seemed like a good kid; devoted to his family, bright, courageous. He was heading off to college. When he came back, he'd be giving Gibbs a run for his money; the kid would probably end up with his job.

Gibbs kept going in search of his lieutenant and figuring he'd find him in the stables… or the armory… or perhaps hanging around the kitchen pulling his 'starving and frozen guard' routine. He wasn't guarding Laertes at the moment, so the Director's son must have cut him loose from his protection duties.

Crossing the Great Hall, Gibbs wondered at all of the preparations that were going on. Servants were bustling here and there with decorations, flowers, and precious stones, all in white or ivory. It didn't look like they were getting ready for that afternoon's funeral; anyways, the funeral was going to be held out back, in the Grand Courtyard. As he looked at the white lace, the lilies, and the huge cake, Gibbs felt his gut clench… this looked like a wedding. He'd endured four of his own; he figured if anyone would know what a wedding looked like, it would be him. Snagging one of the servants, Gibbs demanded to know what was going on.

"We were told to make these preparations, My Lord," the nervous servant stammered, looking down at the case in his hands. "We know not what they're for."

"McGee, what did I tell you about calling me 'My Lord'?" Gibbs demanded, cuffing the young man across the back of his head.

"Sorry, My Lo…. I mean…" The young man fell silent, looking miserable as he toyed with the handle of the case.

"What do you have there?" Gibbs wanted to know.

The young man brightened. "These are sound redirection units; they are to catch the voices of those on the dais and amplify them; it works on the principle that sound travels through the air like the waves of the sea. If we can direct those waves, we can bring the sound to the…"

"To the place, with the things," Gibbs sighed, letting the servant go. "I never could understand what you come up with. If you find out what's really going on, I expect you to report back to me."

"Absolutely, My L… Uh, Boss."

Gibbs gazed heavenward in a bid for patience, then turned and continued his trek through the Castle Elsinore. It was a huge place.

"My Lord?" McGee called after him. He flinched when Gibbs fired him a look at using the title, but he took a deep breath and pulled himself together. "You asked me to listen to the gossip amongst the servants?" At Gibbs' impatient nod, the young servant continued. "Boss, I overheard two of the night watchmen discussing an apparition they'd seen in the courtyard during the early hours of the day."

"An apparition? Like a ghost?" Gibbs demanded, folding his arms across his chest. "Really, McGee?"

McGee nodded. "It's rumored to be the Ghost of King Hamlet. I heard Horatio, the closest friend of our Young Prince Hamlet, will be on the battlements this evening to see for himself. If it be confirm'd the specter of our late King, they shall bring Prince Hamlet out to see for himself."

Gibbs flipped his spy a coin. "Good work, McGee… Keep listening. I want a full update when you hear more."

The young man nodded, then hurried off about his work.

Gibbs continued on his trek to the kitchens, but a sharp hiss from one of the doorways caught his ear. He paused, pretending to fiddle with the clasp of his sword belt, and one of Lady Ophelia's maidens brushed past him, tucking a note into the pocket of his doublet. The Maid Ziva was another in his network of spies, and an invaluable one at that. When the maid was safely down the hallway, Gibbs settled his buckler back into place, and continued on his way. After making certain he was not observed, he tugged the note from his pocket, memorized the time and coordinates penned upon it, then threw the note into the closest convenient fireplace. He'd have just enough time to find his lieutenant, Antonio DiNozzo, before his meeting with his spy.

The kitchens were bustling, and the cooks and bakers were tripping over each other in their haste to prepare the banquet. Gibbs watched everything with a jaded eye. There wasn't a banquet planned for the funeral. Who ate at funerals anyway? This was a lot of food; enough to feed everyone in the Court three times over. Looking around the busy room, Gibbs spotted his lieutenant tucked into a corner, leering at one of the bakery maids.

"In truth? I stand, hour by hour, at the gates or at my master's side, ready to leap to the fray and spill my blood for the protection of those I serve. I stand, hour by hour, in the heat of the sun, or the chill of a blizzard's blast. Do I ask for thanks? Nay, but a little food, and the warming smile of a fair face is all I seek. Shall you deny me the merest of life's pleasures and reward such stalwart duty with naught?"

The maid's heavy sigh and twitching left eyelid showed exactly what she thought of DiNozzo's 'sacrifices'. "Get thee gone, m'lord, before the Master Baker sees! We are not to bestow our smiles on any but the bread we bake and the Lords who command us ere to do it."

"A Lord I am not," DiNozzo agreed with a sad sigh, "but a man starved of that which will sustain him during long hours of duty…"

The maid's giggle almost drowned out the solid whack of Gibbs' hand against DiNozzo's skull.

"C'mon… we've got work to do!" Gibbs grated, striding out toward the rendezvous with Lady Ziva.


	3. Prelude 1, Scene 3

**Prelude 1, Scene 3:**

The Lady Ziva waited in the shadows of the second floor foyer. From that vantage point, they could see and hear anyone who may have approached, and there were half a dozen rooms to fade into so their conversation wouldn't be overheard.

"M'lord Gibbs, much has happened in the rooms of Ophelia," the spy reported.

Gibbs gave her a nod to continue.

"Director Polonius…" She paused to growl. "The man is a frog!"

"A toad, Lady Ziva," DiNozzo corrected. "They're nastier."

She huffed with impatience. "The worst kind! He lines his daughter to dance and jig; he first lets fly before our good prince, then she finishes the reel while he plays every angler."

An occasional fisherman, Gibbs could appreciate her play on words. DiNozzo was entirely confused. "Boss?" the lieutenant questioned.

"Director Polonius is using Ophelia as bait, or a 'jig', to capture Hamlet's affections. Like a fisherman, or angler, he lets 'fly' a little line to tempt the catch, then 'reels' it in until the fish is exhausted and gives up."

"And what is the purpose of this 'dance' he's putting on?" Ziva added.

DiNozzo shook his head. "She can make a complicated play on words but she can't distinguish between a frog and a toad?"

Gibbs ignored him. "What plans does the Director have for Ophelia?"

Ziva shook her head. "I'll find out. He has ordered her to return the prince's letters and tokens of affection and has bid her keep her distance from the prince. I think he means to test the mettle of Lord Hamlet's affections; will the tempter temper his temper?"

"Ziva, cut it out; you sound more like Abigail the Alchemist!" Tony protested, squeezing the bridge of his nose.

"Keep an eye on this, Ziva. Report to me when you hear something."

"As always, M'lord Gibbs," she said with a curtsey. She vanished into the halls like a swirl of smoke, leaving Gibbs and his lieutenant gazing after her in awe.

Getting back to business, Gibbs strode away, glancing at his timepiece. He had to check in with the other guards before he could check in on Physician Mallard. "DiNozzo, to your post. Young Laertes is in your care until I say otherwise."

"What about you, Boss?" DiNozzo inquired.

Ignoring him, Gibbs too disappeared into the labyrinth that was Elsinore.


	4. Prelude 1, Scene 4

**Prelude 1, Scene 4:**

Ducky looked sad. Heartbroken, almost. He leaned over the late king's body, peering at it and on occasion touching him with hands covered in the thinnest of leather gloves. "Jethro, King Hamlet was in excellent physical shape. I am convinced now more than ever that there is foul play afoot."

Gibbs listened carefully to the physician's detailed explanation of his reasons for saying so, and he had to admit Ducky had a point. "Take samples, Duck. Run them over to the alchemist. I'm sure Abby won't mind."

"It has been too long since I have visited our dear Abigail," Ducky nodded. "I know she loved our good King as well. If she can help us find out what occurred here, I am certain she would be happy to assist us." His lips pursed as he looked up from his examination. "Does she still reside in the caves out by the cliffs?"

"Uh-huh," Gibbs nodded. "If you don't want to go alone, take your young assistant with you."

"Master Palmer would appreciate a respite from his duties," Ducky agreed. "I will, of course, let you know what we find. Our efforts must be speedy; Director Polonius was quick to insist the funeral shall not be delayed. Our late king shall be interred on hallowed ground after this evening's fiasco."

"Then you'd better get to it," Gibbs advised, heading out of the dank cellar. He had his rounds to do and his minions to check up on before he could go visit the alchemist himself.


	5. Prelude 1, Scene 5

**Prelude 1, Scene 5:**

"Boss! Boss, you're not going to believe this!" DiNozzo hissed as Gibbs returned to the corridors of Elsinore. "There was a … You're not going to believe this!"

"Spit it out, DiNozzo," Gibbs sighed.

"Queen Gertrude and Claudius just got married, Boss!"

Gibbs spun to a halt and stared at his lieutenant. " _What_?" Claudius was the late King's brother, the one who had found Hamlet dead in his courtyard.

"I'm not kidding, Boss! They just got married!" DiNozzo shook his head. "I think Young Prince Hamlet just found out… he's not taking it well."

"I can imagine not," Gibbs muttered with a shake of his head. He'd always liked the Prince. He was a smart kid, treated the servants and staff with respect, and had grown up just like his old man. The late King had been a fair ruler, wise and caring, with a great sense of humor. Gibbs would miss him. Especially now. If the King's brother married the King's widow, he automatically got the kingship. There was no way Claudius was going to end up with the throne Gibbs had just carved!

"There's a reception in the Great Hall, Boss. Everyone is ordered to be there. The only reason I'm not is that I was sent by Director Polonius to find you."

Gibbs headed towards the Great Hall with resignation slowing his steps. He had a feeling this was going to be a very bad week.


	6. Act 1, Scene 2

**Act 1, Scene 2:**

The new King puffed out his chest, addressing the audience with a showy display of cheer and woe. "Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green, and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe, yet so far hath discretion fought with nature that we with wisest sorrow think on him together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, th' imperial jointress to this warlike state, have we (as 'twere with a defeated joy, with an auspicious and a dropping eye, with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, in equal scale weighing delight and dole) taken to wife."

DiNozzo shook his head at the King's flowery language. "Yeah, the late King's not even cold yet, and Claudius married the widow. He can cry with one eye and laugh with another if he wants to; he's the new King! Boss, is it too late to quit and find a job with Fortinbras of Norway?"

Gibbs shushed him as the new King finished thanking his supporters in the audience and began to handle Courtly business.

"Now follows that you know. Young Fortinbras, holding a weak supposal of our worth or thinking by our late dear brother's death our state to be disjoint and out of frame, colleagued with this dream of his advantage, he hath not failed to pester us with message importing the surrender of those lands lost by his father, with all bonds of law, to our most valiant brother – so much for him. Now for ourself and for this time of meeting. Thus much the business is: we have here writ to Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, to suppress his further gait herein, in that the levies, the lists, and full proportions are all made out of his subject."

"Claudius isn't as useless as he looks," Gibbs mentioned in an aside to DiNozzo. "He just negotiated a cease-fire with Fortinbras, who wants to regain control of the lands that were lost to King Hamlet."

"I think that ruins our job opportunities," McGee added as he slid up behind them.

"I knew it was too good to be true!" DiNozzo moaned.

On the dais, the King turned his attention to the Director's son. "And now, Laertes, what's the news with you? What wouldst thou beg, Laertes, that shall not be my offer, not thy asking?"

The handsome young blade bowed low before the throne. "Your leave and favor to return to France, from whence though willingly I came to Denmark to show my duty in your coronation. Yet now I must confess, that duty done, my thoughts and wishes bend again toward France and bow them to your gracious leave and pardon."

DiNozzo turned panicked eyes on Gibbs. "I don't have to leave Elisinore with him, do I? I can stay here and not go to France?"

Gibbs gave his lieutenant a reassuring snort as he listened to Polonius giving his blessing to his son's request. His attention was caught when Claudius turned his attention to Young Hamlet, asking his 'cousin and son' why he was so depressed. "Maybe Claudius _is_ as useless as we feared," he corrected himself with a sigh. When the Queen joined in and tried to encourage her son to cast off his mourning clothes and the King jumped in with pretty words begging Hamlet to look on him like a new father, Gibbs felt his stomach turn. He had to get out of there.


	7. Act 1, Scene 2b

**Act 1, Scene 1B:**

The alchemist's lair was a dark and strange place, full of glass vials, bubbling cauldrons, and complex series of tubes carrying multicolored smoke. Gibbs ducked under the overhanging vines across the portal just as something inside uttered an unearthly shriek.

"Gibbs! Gibbs! Gibbs! Didst thou bring mine Elixir of Life?" her smoky voice cried from the depths of the lair. The alchemist herself darted forward, throwing her arms around him in greeting, then leaping backwards in excitement as Gibbs offered the flagon of red liquid. "Wherefore didst thou discover this wonderful bean?"

"Coffee? It's been around," Gibbs shrugged. "What did you find?"

Abigail the Alchemist quaffed her thirst from the flagon, then placed it on her table and pressed her palms together. "Good Physician Mallard was correct, Gibbs. A poison was indeed introduced into the King's ear. Judging by the smell, he either needed to clean those puppies out…"

"Abs!" Gibbs barked, keeping her on track. He gazed at the round circles of glass on her stone bench, which held… he didn't even want to know what.

The dark-haired maid tugged on the ear of a dead animal that sat atop the bench, picking it up and holding it to her chest. The air bladder she had put inside of it let out a noise that made Gibbs startle, but it made the young woman smile. "Good King Hamlet was murdered, Gibbs. I made a wax impression of his ear; you can see the marks from the funnel that was jammed down in there. The poison was poured in, and it ate through his skin in moments. The Good King's hair was long enough to cover his ears, or someone didn't stop to figure out what the smell was, or they didn't notice that…"

"So the King was murdered," Gibbs sighed. "Looks like Physician Mallard was right. Director Polonius is not going to like this."

The maid, her bright green eyes highlighted by the dark smudges she ringed them with, pursed the lips she stained with dark berry juice. "Director Polonius is a toad," she informed him, kicking one of her thick-soled slippers on the floor. "As a matter of fact, I think it was hemlock mixed with toad poison that killed King Hamlet. My pet toad Bert panicked when I started messing with the sample. I think he might have lost a few relatives in the making of this poison."

Gibbs scanned the alchemist's workshop to make sure there were no prying eyes, then dropped a kiss on her white cheek. "You're the best, Abs," he whispered in her ear.

She grinned at him, dropping him a curtsy as he turned to leave.

Once outside the alchemist's caves, Gibbs leaned back against the rough stones and closed his eyes. Someone had killed the King. Gibbs had a few suspects in mind already. He vowed that whoever was responsible wasn't going to get away with it, no matter whom it might turn out to be.


	8. Act 1, Scene 3

**Act 1, Scene 3:**

Gibbs found McGee in the Great Hall later that evening, after the funeral had concluded. The young man was on his hands and knees in a frantic search under tables and behind the constructed dais. "Lose something, McGee?" Gibbs asked, startling the young man into banging his head on the underside of a table.

"My sound amplification unit! It worked so well for the King's speech… the new King, obviously; he was quite pleased with it…" McGee broke off as Gibbs' glare darkened. "Sorry, M'lord… I mean, uh… I put the unit off to the side so it wouldn't get broken, and now it seems to have disappeared."

Gibbs ignored the younger man's dilemma. "Have you heard any more about your ghost, McGee?"

McGee shook his head in dejection, but his chin jerked up as someone entered the Great Hall from the main doors. The two men recognized him as Prince Hamlet as his melancholy voice filled the room.

"So excellent a king, so loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly… Heaven and earth, must I remember? Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on. And yet, within a month (let me not think on it; frailty, thy name is woman!), a little month, or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body… She, even she, (a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!), married with my uncle, my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules!"

McGee's gaze slid to Gibbs, who was watching the scene with sorrow. "I don't think our Young Prince is too happy about this whole thing."

"Nope," Gibbs had to agree.

"It does seem rather fast for the Queen to have married again," McGee hinted. "Although, it hasn't been a month since King Hamlet died; it's been a week, maybe."

Gibbs' nod was slow, and when he returned his gaze to the young man's face, he knew they were thinking the same thing. The unexpected funeral and the hasty marriage within a week was to coincidental, and Gibbs didn't believe in coincidences. "Keep on it, McGee," Gibbs ordered. "I want to know anything you hear."

McGee's compliance was drowned out by the arrival of three more men. Gibbs knew them all; two were guards who stood watch over the city walls, and the other was one of Prince Hamlet's school buddies.

The old friends greeted each other, and Hamlet's sourness about his mother's wedding was obvious. His school friend, Horatio, apparently felt the same way, but that wasn't what he'd come to talk about. "I saw him once. He was a goodly king," Horatio said of the late ruler.

"He was a man. Take him for all in all, I shall not look on his like again," Hamlet replied with a despondent groan.

Horatio seemed hesitant to share his next bit of news. "My lord, I think I saw him yesternight."

"Saw who?" Hamlet demanded.

Gibbs and McGee sidled closer.

"My lord, the King your father. Season your admiration for a while with an attentive ear, till I may deliver upon the witness of these gentlemen this marvel to you," Horatio interrupted, gesturing to the two guards beside him.

Gibbs and McGee moved even closer to the small crowd.

Horatio motioned to the two guards beside him. "Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch, in the dead waste and middle of the night, been thus encountered a figure like your father, armed at point exactly, cap-a-pie, appears before them and with solemn march goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked by their fear-surprised eyes, whilst they, distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear, stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me in dreadful secrecy impart they did, and I with them in the third night kept the watch, where as they had delivered, both in time, form of the thing (each word made true and good) the apparition comes. I knew your father; these hands are not more like."

"Looks like we're not going to get any sleep tonight," McGee mentioned in an undertone as Hamlet insisted the guards and Horatio include him in their next watch.

Gibbs narrowed his eyes as he nodded. A fully armored figure pretending to be the late King showing up in the middle of the night was pretty strange. If Hamlet was going to try and talk to this figure, Gibbs was definitely going to be there.


	9. Act 1, Scene 4

**Act 1, Scene 4:**

McGee huddled into his great coat, trying to keep his breath from making frosty plumes in the night air. Beside him, DiNozzo was grumbling under his breath about the cold, the late night, and the lack of food. Next to DiNozzo sat Lady Ziva, dressed in the trousers, tunic, and heavy coat of another of the guards for once. Her alert eyes scanned the darkness, her only expression of irritation directed at the discontented DiNozzo beside her.

Gibbs, on McGee's other side, sat motionless, staring into the night as if he could read it. He breathed easily, unaffected by the cold or the hour. "Here we go," he whispered, tensing as he watched the midnight shift-change of the guards in the courtyard below.

The team watched him for his hand-signals, and after receiving their unspoken commands they faded into the secret passages of the fortifications that hid them. Gibbs and McGee drifted to a spot directly behind Marcellus and Barnardo, waiting for Horatio and Hamlet to show up.

"The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold," Hamlet mentioned as he approached the group. The two guards saluted him, but the young Prince didn't notice.

"It is a nipping and an eager air," Horatio agreed.

Hamlet tried to read his timepiece, but couldn't. "What hour how?"

"I think it lacks twelve," Horatio offered.

Marcellus shook his head. "No, it is struck."

Gibbs nodded to himself. The changing of the guard had been right on time. He would have to remember to mention that in his next security briefing.

A flourish of trumpets and the sound of wild partying split the air, and Horatio looked around in astonishment. "What does this mean, my lord?"

Hamlet's voice was sour. "The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels; and, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, the kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out the triumph of his pledge."

Gibbs felt a pang of sympathy for the Prince; the sounds of the post-reception after-party couldn't have been easy for him to hear. A large shipment of Rhenish, a German wine, had appeared that afternoon, and Gibbs was in charge of checking it in. From the amount of bottles in each crate, Gibbs figured nobody in the wedding party was going to be up before noon the next day.

A chill wind blew, accompanied by a groaning noise. The men standing guard tightened their grip on their weapons and looked around to find the source of the noise.

"Boss?" McGee chattered from beside Gibbs. "What's that?"

"Look, my lord, it comes," Horatio exclaimed, unconsciously scooting behind his friend the Prince.

The 'Ghost' was indeed wearing armor, looked a lot like the late King, and with a booming echo that filled the courtyard, sent everyone but Hamlet shrinking in fear.

The Prince opened his arms wide. "Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, be thy interests wicked or charitable, thou com'st in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee. I'll call thee 'Hamlet', 'King', 'Father', 'Royal Dane'. O, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher, wherein we saw thee quietly interred, hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again. What may this mean that thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel, revisits thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous, and we fools of nature so horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?"

"He might just answer, if you'd shuddup for a second," Gibbs couldn't help but grumble. "McGee, what do you make of this?"

"We both saw Good King Hamlet buried this evening, Boss! I don't know what to think… except that booming sounds like feedback from my sound redirection device that disappeared on me this afternoon."

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Gibbs approved. "Let's go check it out!"

The figure of the 'ghost' waved a hand towards Hamlet, and the Prince stepped forwards to follow it. Marcellus, Barnardo, and Horatio were quick to pounce on him and keep him rooted to his spot on the courtyard stones, but Hamlet struggled with them. "It waves me still!" he protested. To the 'ghost', he cried, "Go on, I'll follow thee!"

Marcellus shook his head, tightening his grip on his Prince. "You shall not go, my lord!" he protested.

"Hold off your hands!" Hamlet shouted, struggling against the three holding him.

"Be ruled!" Horatio reproved him. "You shall not go!"

Hamlet grew desperate. "My fate cries out and makes each petty artery in this body as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve. Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen. By heaven, I'll make of ghost of him that lets me! I say, away! - Go on. I'll follow thee!" he called in plaintive promise to the apparition floating before them.

Hamlet broke free of the restraining arms and took off running as the 'Ghost' whisked backwards through the darkness, both disappearing before Gibbs could see where they went. He watched two dark shapes, bent into low crouches, take off after the Prince and the strange apparition and he breathed a sigh of relief that Ziva and DiNozzo were on the Prince's heels. He gestured to McGee and they raced towards the courtyard to see what they could pick up about the whole thing.

"He waxes desperate with imagination," Horatio exclaimed to the guard.

Marcellus tugged Horatio's sleeve. "Let's follow! 'Tis not fit thus to obey him."

"Have after. To what issue will this come?" Horatio wanted to know.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!" Marcellus shot back, again grasping the other man's sleeve and pulling it.

Horatio for some reason seemed hesitant to go charging blindly into the darkness. "Heaven will direct it," he said with hope.

When Marcellus saw Gibbs race into the courtyard, he blanched in fear. "Nay, let's follow him!" he exclaimed.

"Ya think, Marcellus?" Gibbs shouted after him as the guard scurried into the darkness, followed closely by Horatio. "Idiots!" Gibbs grumbled to himself.

"Boss, I found it!" McGee shouted. "It is my sound redirection device! I wonder how it got out here?"

Gibbs found a torch flickering on the side of the building, and he held it up. "I wonder who put that there?" he added as the light glimmered off of a zip-line secured to the walls of the fortification. From the angle the suit of armor had disappeared, Gibbs would have guessed it to have been on that line. "Stay here and figure out how someone could have used that box to make that noise. I'm going to find out where this leads!" he barked to McGee.


	10. Act 1, Scene 4b

**Act 1, Scene 4b**

The weary band of investigators assembled on the palace steps as the dawn broke above the frosty horizon. "What'cha got, DiNozzo?" Gibbs barked, wishing he had a hot cup of coffee.

"We followed Prince Hamlet into the woods, Boss, but we lost him almost right away. Even Ziva couldn't find his trail. I guess the wind blew the snow over his tracks. We heard crashing, but it seemed like it was coming from all around us. We couldn't find the source of it. When we finally found Prince Hamlet, he was in the custody of Horatio and Marcellus. They were asking him about what he saw, but Boss; the Prince looked like he'd been hit over the head. He looks like he's got a turret loose in his upstairs battlements." DiNozzo pointed to his temple and made a circular motion for effect, but gulped and continued as Gibbs' glare darkened. "He said something about an arrant knave living in Denmark, the ghost being a good ghost, and then he swore everyone to secrecy and headed back home like everything was just fine."

"My sound amplifying device wasn't broken, Boss," McGee reported, when Gibbs turned his attention to him. "I think it was picking up sounds from deeper in the woods, from the way it was angled when I first saw it."

"Off that angle, I found a series of sticks bent into bows with waxed twine strung to them," Ziva reported. "Those make a moaning sound when twisted around a piece of metal. That could have been the source of our mystery groaning."

"That makes sense," McGee agreed.

"Those noise-makers were in the same area we met up with you, M'lord Gibbs," Ziva added. "It seems you found something as well?"

Gibbs nodded. "That line went from the wall out to the woods. It didn't have ice or snow on it, which means something dragged across the top of it since the snow started falling. When I got back to the fortifications, the line had been taken down. None of the guards had seen anything."

"How very strange," Ziva voiced. "It appears we have a shrew!"

"A mole, Ziva!" DiNozzo corrected.

She frowned. "Wait… which one was Alchemist Abigail attempting to tame?"

DiNozzo ignored her. "An inside man inside the castle. Great; just when I was starting to think we'd gotten this place locked down!"

Gibbs stilled everyone with a look. "If anyone hears anything, I want you to report to me immediately!"

His three elite team members nodded, and at Gibbs' wave of dismissal, they scattered back to their posts.


	11. Act 2, Scene 2

**Act 2, Scene 2**

Gibbs tried to keep from fidgeting as he stood in the dark corner of the room. The King had requested added security for some reason today, and Director Polonius had commanded that Gibbs be at his beck and call. The Master of Security had better things to be doing than to baby-sit the King and Queen… he had people for that. The pressing issue on his mind was the strange goings-on in the courtyard the night before. None of his team could answer any questions yet. Even if they had answers, they wouldn't be able to share them while Gibbs was standing guard over the King.

There was a knock on the door, and Gibbs jumped to answer it. Two men stood before him, and Gibbs checked them for weapons before allowing them into the room at the King's nod. They had the bored, foppish look of distinguished gentlemen, but Gibbs recognized something in their stance that he didn't like as they both sized him up; they were probably ex-military-turned-private-security. There was more to these two than first met the eye, and Gibbs was going to keep that eye firmly upon the new visitors.

The King spread his hands to the newcomers. "Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Moreover that we much did long to see you, the need we have to use you did provoke our hasty sending. Something have you heard of Hamlet's transformation, so call it, since nor the exterior nor the inward man resembles that it was."

 _That would be the general description of 'transformation', yes,_ Gibbs sighed.

"What it should be, more than his father's death, that thus hath put him so much from the understanding of himself I cannot dream of. I entreat you both that, being of so young days brought up with him and since so neighbored to his youth and manners, that you vouchsafe you rest here in our court some little time, so by your companies to draw him on to pleasures, and to gather so much as from occasion that you may glean, whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus, that, opened, lies within our remedy."

 _King Claudius is having these two spy on Hamlet now, is he? Great… that's just what I need!_

The Queen shone her beautiful smile on the two newcomers. "Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you, and sure I am two men there is not living to whom he more adheres. If it will please you to show us so much gentry and goodwill as to expend your time with us awhile for the supply and profit of our hope, your visitation shall receive such thanks as fits a king's remembrance."

 _And Queen Gertrude is in on this too? Is she worried about her son, or does she want him out of the way of her new marriage?_ Gibbs wanted to shake his head at the whole thing. He'd always had respect for Queen Gertrude, but this hasty marriage, the failure to stand up for Hamlet's right to the throne, and now this spying on her own son had that respect vaporizing like dew. He hadn't taken her for the power-hungry type, but Gibbs could still be surprised by people. He watched with anger as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern agreed to do as the Royal couple asked. As he held the door open for their departure, he wished he could slam it on their heads.

Another disturbance down the hall had Gibbs tensing, but it proved only to be Director Polonius. Gibbs admitted him with a polite nod and resumed his post.

"The ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, are joyfully returned," Polonius reported as he jerked a quick bow to the royal couple.

Claudius clapped the Director on the shoulders. "Thou still hast been the father of good news."

Polonius appeared pleased. "Have I, My lord?" At the King's nod, he lowered his head sanctimoniously. "I assure my good liege I hold my duty as I hold my soul, both to my God and to my gracious king…"

 _The man_ _is_ _a toad!_ Gibbs thought to himself.

"…and I do think, or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy so sure as it hath used to do, that I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy."

The King's chin jumped upwards. "O, speak of that! That do I long to hear."

"Give first admittance to the ambassadors. My news shall be the fruit to that great feast," came Polonius' 'humble' request.

Gibbs fought off the urge to shake his feet… _it's really getting deep in here! He's not just a toad; he's a toady!_

The King had turned to the beaming Gertrude. "He tells me, Dear Gertrude, he hat found the head and source of all your son's distemper."

 _As if she wasn't standing right there,_ Gibbs thought with a mental groan. _I notice now it's 'your' son. Hmmph!_

"I doubt it is no other but the main – His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage," Gertrude regretted.

 _Hey, somebody's thinking!_

The King wasn't convinced. "Well, we shall sift him." He was distracted out of that line of thought by the arrival of the ambassadors, Voltemand and Cornelius, who came in on Polonius' heels. After Gibbs cleared them, they immediately launched into their report. Gibbs listened curiously, and learned that Fortinbras had agreed not to invade Denmark after getting first scolded by his uncle Norway and then paid off.

Polonius couldn't wait to share his news as Gibbs escorted the ambassadors out of the room. "This business is well ended. My liege, and madam, to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is, why day is day, night night, and time is time were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief…"

 _Too late!_ Gibbs snorted to himself.

"Your noble son is Mad. 'Mad' call I it, for, to define true madness, what is it but to be nothing else but mad?"

Gibbs could feel a headache pounding behind his eyes. _You ought to know…_

"More matter with less art," the Queen grumbled, and Gibbs joined her in wishing the Director would get to the point.

Polonius looked hurt, and he protested, "Madam I swear I use no art at all. That he's mad, 'tis true; 'tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true – a foolish figure, but farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him then, and now remains that we find out the cause of this effect, or rather say, the cause of this defect, for this effect defective comes by cause. Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend. I have a daughter (have while she is mine) who, in her duty and obedience, mark, has given me this. Now gather and surmise…"

As the King and Queen (and Gibbs) stared at him in bafflement, Polonius pulled a letter out of his pocket and began reading it.

Gibbs heard a light scuffling on the door, and he edged closer and slipped it open a crack. Lady Ziva stood on the other side, glancing about to be sure she wasn't observed. She seemed about to speak, but as she caught wind of what Director Polonius was reading, she paused in astonishment.

"Gonna make my ears bleed," Gibbs admitted to her wordless look of question. "Whatcha got?"

"The Director plans to place Lady Ophelia in Prince Hamlet's path. He believes the loss of Ophelia's love has pushed our Prince under the edge."

Gibbs knew what she meant. "I think that's what he's trying to tell Their Graces," he admitted with an expressive roll of his eyes.

"The Lady does love Prince Hamlet still, but was bade to return the remembrances and letters by her father, as a test of the Prince's loyalty and love."

"This guy's a piece of work," Gibbs sighed. "Keep an eye on the Lady Ophelia. I don't think our Prince would hurt her, but I want you near by. She might let something slip that'll help us figure this whole thing out."

Ziva nodded. "As you say."

Gibbs threw a glance over his shoulder as Polonius finally came to the point (or the King shut him up) and when he turned back to the door, Lady Ziva was gone. He resumed his post, tempted to bang his head against the wall, but had to jump forwards to let Polonius out of the room as the Director headed off to put his crazy plan into place. Gibbs would have given anything to follow him, but he had to stay with the King and Queen. At least Ziva was there.

Another knock on the door brought Gibbs out of the shadows, and when he opened it, he saw a very disconcerted DiNozzo. "Boss, a whole troupe of actors just showed up on our doorstep. They demand entrance; I can't get them to leave."

"Stay here; guard the King. I'll handle this," Gibbs ordered, trading places with his lieutenant.

As Gibbs stormed down the hallways, he could hear voices from one of the larger rooms. It sounded like Hamlet had run into his 'old college buddies', Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Gibbs slowed a fraction to read the tones in the voices he heard; the two spies sounded baffled and Hamlet sounded… well, crazy. _Kid's definitely lost it, but I don't think it's losing his girlfriend,_ Gibbs thought with a sad sigh.

There were a dozen or so actors waiting in the foyer when Gibbs arrived, and when they recognized the unflinching authority in his eyes, they produced a Letter that proclaimed them to be there at the behest of Prince Hamlet. Gibbs let out a sharp breath, but he knew he couldn't throw them out. He began the long process of checking each and every one of them for weapons and searching through their luggage and props. Gibbs decided that he hated actors almost as much as he hated lawyers.

When his security sweep was completed, Gibbs led the troupe through the palace to the Great Room, where Hamlet was still talking to the two spies.

"Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come then. The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outwards, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived."

Guildenstern took the bait. "In what, my dear lord?

Hamlet gave him a sly smile. "I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw!"

Gibbs paused, halting the troupe behind him. _He's only crazy when the wind sits in certain directions? No, I think there's something else going on here… He not only knows a hawk from a handsaw, but he recognizes the difference between visiting college buddies and spies on the royal payroll. Hmm… I wonder what our Prince is up to?_

Polonius had joined Hamlet at this point, and the Prince was jesting with him as Gibbs led the actors into the room. While Hamlet fell to greeting his old friends and engaged one of the players in an on-the-spot recitation, Gibbs located Ziva off to one side and strode over to her.

"The Prince, if he is insane, has a method in it," Ziva reported. "The way he plays with Director Polonius indicates to me that he has control of his wits."

"What about these two?" Gibbs asked, nodding in the direction of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

"Those two are not what they claim. Our Prince knows they were sent for, despite their protests. When he finally got them to admit it, he revealed that he knew why; they were to spy on him and find the cause of his melancholy. They were surprised, M'lord, that he had found them out."

Gibbs's watchful gaze rested on the Prince as he chided Polonius for becoming bored with the actor's recitation. "I want a background on these two clowns. Find out everything you can on them; previous employment, travel history, current place of lodging. Have McGee help you. I want to know everything about them from birth to this minute."

Ziva nodded and disappeared, leaving Gibbs alone to keep an eye on the Prince. The players had departed to prepare for the following day's play, and even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had gone off to their quarters, leaving the Prince alone. Gibbs could hear him mumbling to himself, and as his voice grew louder and his actions grew more animated, Gibbs slipped closer to try and overhear what the Prince was saying.

"Hum, I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have, by the very cunning of the scene, been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions. For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ. I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks; I'll tent him to the quick. If he do blench, I'll know my course."

Gibbs rubbed his chin in thought. The Prince's idea was a good one. Claudius was at the top of his own suspect list, but he had precious little evidence to go on. If Hamlet could catch the King in a vulnerable moment into showing some remorse, Gibbs would have the proof he needed to kick his investigation up a notch.

Hamlet was still mumbling to himself. "The spirit that I have seen may be a devil, and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, out of my weakness and my melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds more relative than this. The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King."

As the Prince leapt to his feet and scampered from the room, Gibbs felt a chill dance down his spine. He wished he knew what all happened in the woods the previous night, when Hamlet had run off with the 'ghost'. It was obvious that the 'ghost' had told him something, but what? _What else is our Prince planning?_


	12. Act 3, Scene 1

_Note: Wow, sorry, friends! To any who read this story and felt there was a gaping hole in the action, you were right! I'd missed two whole chapters somehow! I hope this makes more sense!_

* * *

Act 3, Scene 1:

Gibbs returned his post of guarding the King, his gut churning over the new developments. He found the Royal Couple in one of the spacious foyers of the palace. DiNozzo was happy to report that things had been quiet… at least, as quiet as things could be with Director Polonius in attendance. Gibbs noticed that despite his lieutenant's opinion of the Director, DiNozzo didn't seem in too much of a hurry to depart, instead hanging by the Boss' shoulder. _Probably to watch the show; the Director never fails to entertain,_ Gibbs guessed. He caught sight of Lady Ophelia hiding behind her father's shoulder and realized with a heavy sigh what DiNozzo's true motives were.

There was a knock at one of the doors leading into the foyer, and since DiNozzo was standing there, Gibbs nodded for him to open it and clear the persons incoming. It was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Gibbs gave DiNozzo a warning look to keep his eyes open and pay attention. Gibbs didn't trust these two, and by DiNozzo's returning nod, the lieutenant didn't either.

Claudius seemed exasperated with his two spies. "And can you by no drift of conference get from him why he puts on this confusion, grafting so harshly all his days of quiet with turbulent and dangerous lunacy?"

DiNozzo's brows furrowed. "The King seems to think Prince Hamlet is _pretending_ to be crazy?"

Gibbs had caught that too. Prince Hamlet had been squirrelly since that night with the 'ghost'. _Catch him by himself and he makes perfect sense; put him with anyone else, he's a different guy,_ Gibbs thought to himself, remembering the Prince's 'hawk and a handsaw' comment. "Yeah, I have to agree with the Claudius on this one."

"He does confess he feels himself distracted," Rosencrantz responded to the King. "But from what cause he will by no means speak."

Guildenstern decided to chip in. "Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, but with a crafty madness keeps aloof when we would bring him on to some confession of his true state."

The Queen seemed concerned for her son. "Did he receive you well?"

The spies both nodded. "Most like a gentleman," Rosencrantz assured her.

"But with much forcing of his disposition," Guildenstern amended with sorrow.

"Our Prince doesn't trust these two. I don't either," Gibbs muttered to DiNozzo. "You keep an eye on these two turkeys; I want to know what they're doing at all times. I don't want them scratching their noses without you knowing about it."

"Got it, Boss," DiNozzo nodded, his gaze tightening as he focused it on his new charges. "Did we find out where these two came from yet?"

"Ziva's on that," Gibbs told him. "I think they went to school with Prince Hamlet; they seem to go back a few years. She'll find out the rest."

DiNozzo jumped to open the door for the two spies as they finished telling the King about the arrival of the players and how Hamlet had seemed to brighten up when he saw them. "They are about the court, and, as I think, they have already order this night to play before him."

Polonius nodded with enthusiastic self-importance. "'Tis most true, and he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties to hear and see the matter."

The King put on a happy smile for his new wife's benefit. "With all my heart, and it doth much content me to hear him so inclined. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge and drive his purpose into these delights."

"We shall, my lord," the two spies promised as they took their leave.

Gibbs motioned DiNozzo closer as his lieutenant prepared to slip out behind them. "Get an extra team together; brief them on what's going on; I want triple security at the performance tonight."

"On it," DiNozzo replied, then disappeared behind his charges.

Gibbs realized the Queen was also heading for one of the doors, and as she promised to be obedient to the King's wishes and begged Ophelia to aid in restoring Hamlet to himself, Gibbs wished he'd been paying closer attention to what the King was plotting now. He closed the door behind the Queen, keeping a close eye on the three remaining players in this interesting little charade.

Polonius attempted to take charge of the action, dragging his daughter to the center of the foyer and prodding her until she stood up straight. "Ophelia, walk you here. -Gracious, so please you, we will bestow ourselves," he interrupted himself, making sure the King knew what he was planning. Turning back to his daughter, he thrust something into her hands. "Read on this book, that show of such exercise may color your loneliness. – we are oft to blame in this ('tis too much proved), that with devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar e'er the devil himself."

Gibbs suddenly remembered Ziva's report, that Polonius was scheming to put Hamlet and Ophelia together and see how the Prince responded to her presence. He watched in disbelief as Polonius and the King scooted behind one of the doors, leaving it open a crack so they could hear the exchange between the two 'star-crossed lovers'.

Hamlet wandered into the room. His hair stood wildly up from his head, his bloodshot eyes darting over the area and appraising Gibbs for a brief moment before raking over the love of his life. "To be or not to be – that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them."

Gibbs shivered despite himself. _I've had days like that, kid…_

Hamlet's expression grew dreamy and he spun in a slow circle, ending up once more in Gibbs' corner of the room. "To die, to sleep – no more – and by a sleep we say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to – 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream." He paused for a moment and gave Gibbs a sad and knowing look…

Gibbs suddenly knew the Prince was remembering that strange night when they'd hoisted a few together. After the application of a few cups that loosened both of their tongues, Gibbs had let slip about his late wife and daughter, and how close he'd come to ending it all…

Hamlet's gaze grew sadder. "Ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life."

Gibbs fought down the icy shivers that threatened to overwhelm him. The Prince was speaking right to him. He was rooted to the spot, unable to look away from the compassion showing in his cheerless smile. Hamlet knew Gibbs had found the man who'd murdered his wife and daughter. He was well aware of what his Master of Security had done upon that discovery…

The Prince actually patted him on the shoulder. "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?"

…Gibbs had paid that debt with a rifle, rather than an unsheathed blade…

"Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?"

 _What is he trying to do?_ Gibbs' gut shouted, forcing him to realize the clever Prince was trying to manipulate him… _for what, exactly? Is he trying to get me to do something? To not do something…?_

 _To understand something?_ Gibbs managed to break eye contact and straighten his shoulders.

The Prince stepped back, his own gaze lifting skyward, and his voice dropped in pitch and tempo. "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action." His piece spoken and an apparent accord struck with the Master of Security that Gibbs didn't quite understand, Hamlet turned his gaze upon the other occupant of the room with well-feigned surprise. "– Soft you now, the fair Ophelia. – Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered."

 _It's about time he noticed she was here… What is he up to?_

Ophelia looked nervous as she greeted the Prince. She fumbled with a packet of letters and trinkets that she pulled from a pocket. "My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longed long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them."

Hamlet's eyes grew withering. "No, not I. I never gave you aught."

Ophelia drew in a long breath and held it. "My honored lord, you know right well you did, and with them words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, take these again, for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord," she said, shoving the packet into his hands.

The letters hung limp in his hands as he stared at them in derision. "Ha, ha, are you honest?" he demanded.

She was taken aback. "My lord?"

"Are you fair?" he tried again.

Shaking her head in growing fear, she tried to back away from him. "What means your lordship?"

He stepped closer to her, and if there had been any violence in his expression, Gibbs would have intercepted him. "That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty."

Ophelia attempted to gather herself. "Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

He nodded, tossing the packet of letters from hand to hand as he leaned in closer to her. "Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof." He turned away from her, his shoulders sagging. "I did love you once."

Like most of the spurned women Gibbs had ever seen, Ophelia scented the weakness and pounced. "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."

Hamlet snorted, and only Gibbs could see how heartbroken the poor kid actually was. "You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not."

She resented that. "I was the more deceived," she shot back.

He stormed a pace away. "Get thee to a nunnery!" he ordered her.

Gibbs was distracted from the Prince's tirade by one of the doors sliding open a crack. Knowing the King and Polonius were close by in case Hamlet really lost his temper, Gibbs sidled away and waved Ziva into the room. She was watching her charge, the Lady Ophelia, with sorrow, but when Gibbs cleared his throat, she snapped her attention back to him.

"I have spoken with all of my contacts, Gibbs, and no one seems to know of our two spies. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were indeed school fellows of Prince Hamlet, but after their graduation, it is as though they fell from bowels of the earth."

Gibbs squeezed his eyes closed. "Fell _into_ the bowels of the earth, Ziva," he corrected with an attempt not to chuckle.

"Whate'er," she shrugged in irritation. "How our new King knew how to contact them is a mystery I have not yet been able to solve… Gibbs, Hamlet has gone; do you want me to follow him?"

Gibbs' gaze snapped over to the sobbing Ophelia.

The poor girl hadn't been physically harmed in any way, but dealing with such a distraught former love must have been hard. "O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword, the expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion and the mold of form, the observed of all observers, quite, quite down!"

Gibbs let his head fall backwards as a sigh escaped him. "Why can't anyone just say what they're thinking?"

"I believe she is," Ziva reminded him with a playful grin.

"And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, that sucked the honey of his musicked vows, now see that noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh; that unmatched form and stature of blown youth blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me to have seen what I have seen, see what I see!"

"Seriously?" Gibbs sighed again. " 'I'm upset; the prince is crazy.' How hard is that to say?"

"You always were a concise kind of person," Ziva consoled him.

The King's booming voice interrupted them. "Love?" he demanded of Polonius, his voice thick with sarcasm. "His affections do not that way trend; Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness. There's something in his soul over which his melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger; which for to prevent, I have in quick determination thus set it down: he shall with speed to England for the demand of our neglected tribute. Haply the seas, and countries different, with variable objects, shall expel this something-settled matter in his heart, whereon his brains still beating puts him thus from fashion of himself. What think you on it?"

Ever the toady, Polonius was nodding in full agreement to the King as he took his sobbing daughter in his arms and comforted her. "It shall do well. But yet do I believe the origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love. – How now, Ophelia?" he asked, interrupting his own conversation with the King to wipe his daughter's tears.

"How do you think she is?" Gibbs snarled under his breath, forcing Ziva to cover her mouth lest she giggle.

"You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; we heard it all. – My lord, do as you please, but, if you hold it fit, after the play let his queen-mother all alone entreat him to show his grief. Let her be round with him; and I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear of all their conference. If she find him not, to England send him, or confine him where your wisdom best shall think."

The King accepted the suggestion. "It shall be so." Catching sight of Gibbs at the end of the foyer, he made a sharp gesture accompanied by a shake of his head. "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."

Taking his unspoken orders, Gibbs headed off to find the Prince and keep a close eye on him, leaving Ziva behind to watch over the King.


	13. Act 3, Scene 2

_I hope this makes a lot more sense now!_

* * *

Act 3, Scene 2:

Gibbs hung back in the wings as Hamlet scurried around the stage built in the Great Room, giving directions to the actors. His mind was still spinning by what he'd just seen in the foyer, and he hated not knowing exactly what was going on around him. The Prince was pulling something, and Gibbs wasn't sure if he'd just been asked for help or been told to stay out of the way.

The Prince was buzzing from actor to actor, adjusting costumes, guiding gestures, or correcting lines. He looked to be back to his normal, cheerful self; the kid that Gibbs had seen and felt paternal fondness for before the late King died.

Polonius came into the Great Room, trailed by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. DiNozzo was right behind them, slipping out of sight amongst the shadows.

Hamlet caught sight of them, and his smile was bright with eagerness. "How now, my lord, will the King hear this piece of work?"

Polonius smiled in return, but there was confusion in his face. He was probably wondering if this exuberant young man was the same guy who'd just reduced his daughter to a quivering mass of tears not ten minutes ago. "And the Queen too, and that presently."

Hamlet clapped his hands in delight. "Bid the players make haste!" At his flapping motion, Polonius darted towards the stage to inform the Players of their Royal Audience. When the Director was out of the way, Hamlet turned to the two spies. "Will you two help hasten them?" he asked.

"Ay, my lord," Rosencrantz agreed, showing obvious reluctance. He and his cohort trailed after the Director, who was in his element as he bossed people around until they were wound into a tizzy.

Hamlet was rubbing satisfied hands together as he gazed around. "What ho, Horatio!" he called as he noticed his old friend coming into the room.

Horatio sketched a bow. "Here, sweet lord, at your service."

Hamlet clapped him on the shoulders. "Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man as ever my conversation coped withal."

Gibbs leapt out of his corner when one of the actors, carrying a heavy bundle, wandered too close to the edge of the stage and slipped over the side. Gibbs caught the young boy in mid-fall, and after making sure he was steady on his feet, he hustled back to the Prince.

"There is a play tonight before the King," Hamlet was telling his buddy. "One scene of it comes near the circumstance which I have told thee of my father's death. I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, even with the very comment of thy soul observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt do not itself unkennel in one speech, it is a condemned ghost that we have seen, and my imaginations are as foul as Vulcan's forge."

 _Huh… never would've taken the Prince for a Trekkie…_

Hamlet waved a finger beneath Horatio's nose to focus his attention. "Give him heedful note, for I mine eyes will rivet to his face, and, after, we will both our judgments join in sensure of his seeming."

Horatio was pleased with the role he'd been assigned. "Well, my lord. If he steal aught in the whilst this play is playing and escape detecting, I will pay the theft."

There was the sound of a fanfare, and Hamlet darted a gaze to the door. "They are coming to the play. I must be idle," he said with a dark sneer. "Get you a place."

 _Ahhh, so that's what our good Prince is up to, _Gibbs mused to himself. He had to admit it was a brilliant plan. He'd used variations of it during interrogations with great success. _And I have to admit, I'm pretty sure Claudius is behind this whole thing; the murder of the late King, Hamlet's 'ghostly' visit, his alleged insanity, and a few more shady dealings besides._ He glanced around, catching the eyes of his team members who had taken up their stations around the room. They hustled to his side as the guests found their seats. Gibbs filled them in on Hamlet's plan, telling them to keep an eye on the King as well. "If we get enough solid evidence, I can take it to Director Polonius. The imposter King will be deposed and our Prince will get his throne back."

The fanfare of the play's beginning drowned out any opportunity for a response, so Gibbs sent his team back to their posts. Since McGee was one of the serving staff that evening, he stayed by Gibbs after everyone's beverages had been passed out.

The first item of entertainment on the playbill that night was a pantomime show. On the stage, a King and a Queen who were obviously in love with each other entered, covering each other with kisses and caresses. The King, after a convincing amount of lovey-dovey stuff, decided to stretch out for a nap. The Queen left him after he fell asleep there in the garden. As the King slumbered, another man snuck in, removed the crown from the King's head and kissed it, then poured poison into the Royal ear. When the Queen returned and attempted to wake the King, she found him dead. Chaos ensued on the stage as various lords swarmed around her, one of which was the murderer himself.

"Wait a minute…" Gibbs breathed, forgetting all about Hamlet's plan to watch the real King as something caught his eye. "What the heck is _Ducky_ doing up there on stage?"

"Looks like he's playing the Court Physician… he's just pronounced time of death, from the look of it," McGee offered, scraping his own jaw off of his chest.

Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't _believe_ this!" He remembered his purpose in standing where he was and whirled to read the King's face. On stage, the actors cleared the body of the dead king off, and the murderer wooed the grieving Queen into marriage. Claudius looked sick, and Gibbs felt a wash of vindication.

The first act ended, and a touching dialog between a different King and Queen began. The actors who performed this were husband and wife; Gibbs knew this from when he'd checked them in earlier. Filling the role of two people madly in love with each other was typecasting for them, in Gibbs' opinion. The dialog, which Gibbs listened to with only half an ear as he scanned the crowd and kept an eye on the real Royalty, had the gist of a husband knowing that he was soon to die and conversing with his wife about the prospect of her remarrying once she was free. The wife swore faithfulness to her husband, vowing to carry the memory of him forever in her heart. It was a little more than Gibbs could take… after all, his last three marriages hadn't gone that well.

"'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while. My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile the tedious day with sleep," the Player King begged of his wife.

"Sleep rock thy brain, and never come mischance between us twain," the Player Queen replied as she pulled herself from the stage.

Hamlet whirled in his seat, leaving the blushing Ophelia attempting to compose herself. It left one to wonder what Hamlet had been saying to her during the play. Gibbs was sure he'd find out from DiNozzo later… not that he really wanted to know. "Madam, how like you this play?" the Prince demanded.

The Queen was very uncomfortable. She attempted to hide it with a cheerful smile, yet her voice was shaking and she couldn't raise her eyes. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

"O, but she'll keep her word!" Hamlet prophesied.

The King felt the need to throw his own two cents in. "Have you heard the argument? Is there no offense in it?"

Hamlet snorted, a daring glint burning in the embers of his eyes. "No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest. No offense in the world! ''The Mousetrap'. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name, his wife Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that? Your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the galled jade wince; our withers are unwrung."

Gibbs had to admire the kid's pluck; he wasn't mincing words with the King. Calling His Majesty a galled jade, or a horse with raw skin, was gutsy… and dangerous. The Master of Security missed the next few jabs between Hamlet and Ophelia, and again he figured he'd hear about it later… although Hamlet 's words were making even _DiNozzo_ uncomfortable, so he _really_ didn't want to know!

The actor on stage took a deep breath. "Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing, Confederate season, else no creature seeing, thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, with Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, thy natural magic and dire property on wholesome life usurp immediately!" With a flourish, he poured the poison into the 'sleeping' Player King's ears.

Hamlet was on his feet, stabbing his finger towards the ashen-faced King in the Royal Box. "He poisons him in the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon, how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife!"

 _Subtle, Kid… I think you just blew your cover; anybody with his eyes can see what you're up to…_ Gibbs looked around at all of the confusion, noticing that the King had gotten to his feet and was staggering in disorientation.

"The King rises," Ophelia announced.

"Ya think?" Gibbs couldn't help but mutter aloud.

"What, frightened with false fire?" Hamlet taunted.

The Queen, who looked as pasty as a uncooked bread roll herself, grasped her weaving husband's arms. "How fares my lord?

Polonius was no longer content to let others run the action. "Give over the play!" he commanded.

The King pushed him aside. "Give me some light… Away!" he gasped, disappearing behind the curtain that covered the back of his box.

"Lights! Lights! Lights!" Polonius crowed, waiting just long enough to see his orders were followed before he scrambled after his liege.

Hamlet watched as the rest of the Court filed away, the actors disappeared into the wings, and Ophelia beat a hasty retreat. Soon, the only people in the room were Gibbs, his team, Hamlet, and Horatio.

"Why, let the stricken deer go weep, the hart ungalled play. For some must watch, while some must sleep; thus runs the world away," he quoted from a play Gibbs didn't recognize. "Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me) with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players?" the Prince asked his buddy.

"Half a share," Horatio readily agreed with a chuckle.

"A whole one, I!" Hamlet protested with a grin. "For thou dost know, O Damon dear, this realm dismantled was of Jove himself, and now reigns here a very very—peacock…"

"You might have rhymed," Horatio chided him.

Gibbs wondered why the two friends would get so off topic… they'd just proved the King was involved in the death of Old King Hamlet, _and they were talking about a new career in acting?_

Hamlet sighed and grew serious. "O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?"

"Very well, my lord," Horatio agreed.

"Upon the talk of the poisoning?" Hamlet prodded.

Horatio nodded. "I did very well note him."

Hamlet rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. "A ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders! 'For if the king like not the comedy, why, then, belike he likes it not, perdy.' Come, some music!"

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern entered the room, with DiNozzo materializing right behind them. Guildenstern caught the Prince's attention. "Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you."

Hamlet spread his hands expansively. "Sir, a whole history," he offered.

"The King, sir…"

"Ay, sir, what of him?" Hamlet broke in, his façade slipping just a little as a flash of fury slipped over his expression.

"Is in his retirement marvelous distempered…"

 _I don't doubt it,_ Gibbs snorted.

"With drink, sir?" Hamlet needled.

 _I'm gonna need a Bourbon after this fiasco!_

Guildenstern refused to be baited. "No, my lord, with choler."

"Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this with the doctor, for for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more choler," Hamlet warned. Although his voice was sly, the embers were once again burning in his eyes. Gibbs caught the look Hamlet threw his way, and he began to understand. Hamlet wanted justice… or revenge… or whatever he could get his hands on first. And he was pretty much telling Gibbs to stay out of the way. Gibbs wasn't sure he could do that.

"Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair," Guildenstern plodded on in pleading.

Hamlet refused to take pity on him. "I am tame, sir. Pronounce."

"The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you."

"You are welcome," Hamlet shot back, baring his teeth.

Guildenstern was rapidly losing his composure. "Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment. If not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business."

Gibbs gestured for his team to huddle up. "This is getting out of hand. Ziva…"

"I'm to keep a close eye on Lady Ophelia."

"McGee…"

"You want me to keep an eye on the Prince?"

"DiNozzo…"

"I'm watching these two clowns. Got it, Boss!"

Gibbs loved his team; they could read his mind. "I'm going to check on Their Majesties." Something was rotten in Denmark tonight. He could feel it.


	14. Act 3, Scene 3

**Act 3, Scene 3**

Gibbs and DiNozzo slipped silently behind the two spies as they made their way into the Throne Room. Hamlet had gone back to his 'crazy man' routine when the Players had reentered the room to break down the stage, and Gibbs had seen genuine insanity beneath the Prince's playacting.

The King was pacing the room, and the moment the two spies entered the room, he announced his plan to have them take Hamlet off to England. The lackeys agreed to the assignment and left, with DiNozzo on their heels. Gibbs hung around for a moment as Director Polonius wheedled his way into the room, announcing that Hamlet was going to Queen Gertrude's room, and that he'd volunteer to go spy on the conversation for the King and report back.

"Thanks, dear my lord," the King said wearily and with genuine gratitude.

When the Director had taken himself out, the King slumped against the table in the center of the room, looking like he needed a stiff drink. "O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven it hath the primal eldest curse upon it, a brother's murder."

 _What?_ Gibbs started. He wasn't expecting to get a full-out confession. Although, it wasn't a binding one. The King didn't know Gibbs was in the room, and Gibbs hadn't read the King his rights. _Rats!_

"Pray can I not, though inclination be as sharp as will. My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, and, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin and both neglect."

 _Oh, boy… another soliloquy. Why can't these guys just get to the point? 'I Killed My Brother!' See, how hard was that?_

"What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?"

 _I'd use bleach, myself…_

"Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offense? And what's in prayer but this twofold force, to be forestalled ere we come to fall, or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up. My fault is past."

Gibbs shook his head, aghast. _You think announcing that you're done worrying about it is going to help? You're nuttier than your stepson!_

"But, o, what form of prayer can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'? That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder; my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen."

 _All the motive in the world, and not a warrant in sight,_ Gibbs lamented.

"May one be pardoned and retain the offense? In the corrupted currents of this world, offense's guilded hand may shove by justice, and oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law."

 _Oh, get to the point! You're the King, but you're not above the Law. I'll find some way of bringing you to justice for what you've done!_ Gibb vowed.

"But is not so above; there is no shuffling; there the action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves compelled, even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, to give in evidence. What then? What rests? Try what repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?" The King wrung his hands as Gibbs ground his teeth together in irritation. "O Wretched state!" the King wailed.

 _Yup… with you on that one!_

"O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art more engaged! Help, angels! May assay. Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel be soft as sinews of the newborn babe. All may be well."

 _Wishful thinking,_ Gibbs grumbled as the King knelt, clasped his chubby hands together before him, bowed his head, and squeezed his eyes shut.

The door creaked, and Gibbs jerked to attention.

Hamlet slunk into the room. "I might do it pat, now he is a-praying, and now I'll do it!" He drew his sword, mesmerized by how the blade caught the candlelight and sent tiny slivers dancing around the room.

Gibbs tensed, for once in his life unsure about what to do. He couldn't let the Prince kill the King. Yet, the King had killed the Prince's father, and Gibbs knew what _he'd_ do… or rather, what he'd already done… to someone who killed a loved one. Gibbs had everything he needed to get a warrant from Director Polonius and arrest the King on charges of murder, treason, and usurping the throne. The King would be deposed, the marriage annulled, and he'd spend the rest of his life in prison. Prince Hamlet would have his title and position restored to him, and the Kingdom would be a much happier place. However, Claudius killed Hamlet's father, and Gibbs knew the fury and hate that was eating away at the Prince's insides right now. How was life in prison a fair trade for the life of a beloved father? _This is what the Prince had asked me to understand… I get it now. Can I do as he asked?_

Hamlet's face had taken on a thoughtful look as Gibbs had been paralyzed by his mental quandary. He seemed to be in a quandary himself. Gibbs didn't ascribe to any particular religion himself, but he knew the Prince was Catholic. If Claudius was in the act of praying for forgiveness, Hamlet believed Claudius' soul would go straight to heaven, unlike the soul of his father, which hadn't had the benefit of Confession yet. "Am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is fit and seasoned for his passage?" Hamlet demanded. "No. Up sword, and know thou a more horrid bent. When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage…" He sheathed his sword, and Gibbs felt dizzy relief wash over him. With a look of disgust, Hamlet backed out of the room, leaving Gibbs to watch over the kneeling King.

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; words without thoughts never to heaven go," the King lamented.

 _So, he wasn't able to pray anyway… Good thing Hamlet didn't know that…_


	15. Act 4, Scene 1

**Act 4, Scene 1:**

Gibbs was grateful he was alone in the room with the King. He didn't want his team to see him at odds with himself. He still didn't know how he would have handled Hamlet's attempted murder of the King; Gibbs would have had to take the Prince into custody for that. Gibbs still liked the kid. He didn't want anything to happen to him.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrived to make their report, with the faithful DiNozzo dogging their heels. Rosencrantz had barely opened his mouth when the door flew open and a very distraught Queen Gertrude barged in. "Bestow this place on us for a little while," she begged the two spies, and they bowed and left the room, with DiNozzo again on their trail. After Gibbs had closed the door behind them, Gertrude turned to her new husband and wrung her hands as tears quivered in her lashes. "Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!"

The King took her tenderly into his arms. "What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?"

Gertrude trembled in his embrace. "Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier. In his lawless fit, behind the arras hearing something stir, whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat,' and in this brainish apprehension kills the unseen good old man."

Gibbs closed his eyes as a wave of sadness hit him. Hamlet had killed Polonius. _But what was that kooky old man doing behind the tapestry in the Queen's bedchamber?_ _This is not good!_

"O heavy deed!" the King lamented. "It had been so with us, had we been there."

Gibbs could only glare. _Oh, if only you knew how close you came!_

"His liberty is full of threats to all – to you yourself, to us, to everyone. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered? It will be laid to us, whose providence should have kept short, restrained, and out of haunt this mad young man. But so much was our love…"

 _Yeah, right!_ Gibbs interrupted.

"…we would not understand what was most fit, but, like the owner of a foul disease, to keep it from divulging, let it feed even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?"

"To draw apart the body he hath killed, o'er whom his very madness, like some ore among a mineral of metals base, shows itself pure; he weeps for what he has done."

 _Gonna be hard to win back his girlfriend now that he's killed her old man..._

The king wiped his queen's hair away from her eyes. "O Gertrude, come away!" he comforted. "The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch but we will ship him hence; and this vile deed we must with all our majesty and skill both countenance and excuse."

Gibbs's eyes narrowed as he stared at the King. _He's going to let Hamlet get away with this? Shipping him out of the country until this blows over… I don't think so!_

The King raised his head. "Ho, Guildenstern!" he called, and both of the spies came back into the room. "Friends both, go join you with some further aid," he ordered gesturing to Gibbs. "Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, and from his mother's closet hath he dragged him. Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this!"

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern darted away. The King noticed Gibbs in the corner and bestowed a wave that included the Master of Security in the orders, so Gibbs took off at a run. He knew he shouldn't be leaving the King and Queen unguarded, but somehow at this moment he really didn't care.

He found DiNozzo in the hallways, already coordinating the search. "Boss, he slipped past Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I saw them go upstairs, but I think Hamlet's still on this floor."

McGee appeared at that moment and in breathless excitement he informed Gibbs that Hamlet was hiding just down the hall.

Gibbs motioned for DiNozzo and McGee to hold their positions. Prince Hamlet had taken refuge in one of the libraries. Gibbs could hear him through the door. He was muttering to himself. Gibbs couldn't help but flash over everything that'd happened in the past few days. _His father was murdered, his mother remarried, his brand new step-father happens to be his uncle, and then his uncle takes the throne and resigns him to the 'thank you for playing, please try again' position. Someone pretending to be the father's ghost shows up for a chat, his girlfriend dumps him, and his old school buddies are reporting his every move to the uncle who murdered his father…_ It was enough to unhinge even Gibbs himself. He felt for the kid; he really did. However, that didn't change the circumstances.

Doing his duty, Gibbs gave the countdown. DiNozzo and McGee kicked in the door on his mark and they swarmed into the room with their swords drawn.

"Prince Hamlet, you are under arrest for the murder of Director Polonius," Gibbs said, his voice heavy with reluctance as he stared into the panicked eyes of the heir. The kid had definitely lost his mind; insanity surrounded him like a cloud. "King Claudius commanded we bring you to him."


	16. Act 4, Scene 2

**Act 4, Scene 2**  
As they muscled the Prince out into the hallway, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appeared. "What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?" Rosencrantz demanded, taking over the situation.

Gibbs stepped away as Ziva materialized on the scene. "You hear what happened?" he asked her.

Her nod was sad. "The palace is abuzz. Lady Ophelia has disappeared. I had hoped she was with you?"

Gibbs groaned. "No. Find her, Ziva."

"On it," she replied as she raced off.

 _That's just what we need,_ Gibbs sighed as he herded his cavalcade towards the King's chambers.


	17. Act 4, Scene 3

Act 4, Scene 3

Rosencrantz brushed Gibbs out of the way and marched in before the King.

"How now, what hath befallen?" the King demanded.

The spy shrugged. "Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, we cannot get from him."

The king shook his head in anger. "But where is he?"

The spy gestured towards the door. "Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure."

"Bring him before us!" the King ordered, and there was fear growing on his face.

"Ho, Bring in the lord!" Rosencrantz ordered with an imperious wave of his hand.

"Really, Boss? We have to take orders from this lackey, too?" DiNozzo muttered as they pushed the Prince through the doorway.

The King circled the trussed Prince held in DiNozzo and McGee's strong grip. His tone was an attempt to gain confidence and trust. "Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?"

Hamlet's returning grin was cheeky. "At supper!"

Claudius seemed willing to play along… for the moment. "At supper where?"

Hamlet's smile grew even wider. "Not where he eats, but where he is eaten!" At the King's confusion, he was happy to expand on that. Curling his lip up over his teeth, Hamlet made little chewing motions that raised the hair on the backs of everyone's necks. "A certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him."

It was obvious that the King, who didn't strike Gibbs as being the brightest candle in the sconce anyways, needed a moment to think that through.

The prince didn't seem willing to give him that time. His face changed, growing philosophical. "Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots." He paused with a sympathetic snigger as DiNozzo looked like he was going to gag. "Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service – two dishes but to one table…" He spread his hands wide and shrugged. "That's the end."

King Claudius turned a level glare at Gibbs, "Alas, alas!" he said, as if this were somehow Gibbs' fault. He turned away and struck off pacing as Gibbs offered a one-shouldered shrug in response.

Prince Hamlet wasn't through. His voice became a mocking sing-song as he continued, "A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king… and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm…"

"What dost thou mean by this?" Claudius demanded, his patience running thin.

If possible, the Prince's eyes grew even wider and more innocent. "Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar!"

Claudius' temper slipped, rage building on his face until it turned as red as the carpet they all stood on. " _Where… is… Polonius_ ….?" he grated.

Hamlet nodded in expectation of the fury. "In heaven. Send thither to see," he advised, jerking his chin in Gibbs' direction. "If your messenger find him not there…" The prince's eyes gleamed with malice. " _…seek him in the other place yourself!_ " The Prince danced out of the way of Claudius' punch, his mad giggle sending icy shivers down everyone's spines. "But if, indeed, you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby."

The king gestured for DiNozzo and McGee to turn their prisoner over to Gibbs. "Go, seek him there," he ordered.

DiNozzo and McGee didn't look enthused with the idea, sending pleading glances at Gibbs. He raised his eyebrows in an order for them to get going, but his attention was pulled to the Prince in his custody.

Hamlet was once again chortling to himself. "He will stay… till you come!"

The kid had definitely gone crazy. He was swaying in Gibbs' grasp, humming under his breath as DiNozzo and McGee headed off on their grisly duty.

"Get Ducky," Gibbs called after them.

Claudius let out a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as he paced the narrow room. "Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety (which we do tender, as we dearly grieve for that which thou hast done) must send thee hence with fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself. The bark is ready, and the wind at help, the associates tend, and everything is bent for England."

"For England?" the prince cried with excitement.

How did Claudius get a boat ready so fast? Gibbs wondered.

Claudius stared at him. "Ay, Hamlet."

The Prince's smile grew sharp and deadly. "Good."

That unnerved the King. "So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes."

 _Half the castle knows what he's planning_ , Gibbs thought to himself. The man had a voice like a foghorn, and it was only by the grace of whatever god the King decided to pray to that Queen Gertrude hadn't heard any of his plotting. Although Gibbs had to admit, if the Queen did know, he doubted she'd do anything about it. It took a callus woman to choose her new husband over her only child. Queen Gertrude was callus enough to marry her brother-in-law the very day they buried her first husband, so what was turning a blind eye towards her son? She reminded Gibbs of his second ex-wife.

The King turned to Rosencrantz. "Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard. Delay it not. I'll have him hence tonight. Away, for everything is sealed and done that else leans on the affair. Pray you, make haste!"

Rosencrantz returned a brisk nod, then took the bound Prince from Gibbs' guard and led him away.

Gibbs was torn. Should he follow the Prince and see if he could help him in any way, or should he stay here and see what he could dig up for his investigation?

The King's voice startled him. Claudius was pacing around the room, heedless that he still had an audience as Gibbs melted deeper into the shadows at the corner of the room. "And England, if my love though hold'st at aught (as my great power thereof may give thee sense, since yet thy scar looks raw and red after the Danish sword, and thy free awe pays homage to us), thou mayst not coldly set our sovereign process, which imports at full, by letters congruing to that effect, the present death of Hamlet. Do it, England, for like the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done, howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun."

Gibbs stared at the King, his lips thinning with disgust and outrage. He contemplated arresting the King right there but reason stilled him; only the Director had the authority to arrest the King, and the Director was currently being scraped off of the upstairs hallway floor. If he tried to take matters into his own hands, Gibbs would risk not only his own life but also that of his team when Claudius decided to take his revenge. _So, Claudius is going to have Hamlet killed? Not on my watch!_


	18. Act 4, Scene 4b

**Act 4, Scene 4b**

Gibbs had checked quickly on his team, assuring himself that they'd pried Ducky away from his new actor friends and that they were in the process of prying the dead Director off of the flagstones in the upper hallway. Knowing he had only moments before Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would whisk the Prince away, Gibbs hustled after them, trying to catch up.

When he reached the dock, he knew he was only moments too late. The ship bearing the mad Prince had sailed already; Gibbs could see him crawling through the riggings like a monkey, with Rosencrantz trying desperately to bring him down before he broke his neck. Gibbs cursed himself for his bad timing, cursed the King for murdering his brother, cursed the Queen for marrying her husband's murderer, and, as he ran out of breath, he cursed the situation in general. With an uncharacteristic heavy heart, Gibbs turned and headed back into the castle.

A noise from the courtyards caught his ears, and as he recognized the voice ringing out above the rabble, he broke into a run. He had to get to the King first; after all, it was going to be harder to arrest him if he was already dead…


	19. Act 4, Scene 5

**Act 4, Scene 5:**

Gibbs burst into the Throne Room without knocking, sending the King and Queen skittering backwards in terror.

Gertrude jumped, throwing herself into her husband's arms. "Alack, what noise is this?" she demanded as a ruckus started outside of the room.

Ignoring them, Gibbs slammed the heavy wooden door closed and threw the bar across it before darting across the room towards the other door. Gibbs' sensitive ears could hear the rioting mob's approach, and by the pounding footsteps in the hallway, he figured he'd be too late.

"Attend!" Claudius bellowed. "Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door!" He looked around, and seeing Gibbs in the corner, he waved frantically.

"I'm not a Swiss bodyguard!" Gibbs reminded him with a growl. He never liked those hungry-looking assassins.

A messenger bolted through the door before Gibbs could secure it. "Save yourself, my lord!" he gibbered, falling to his knees before the King.

Gibbs' hand drifted to the hilt of his sword on his belt as the noise outside got louder. The door was barred, but that mob meant businesss.

"The ocean, overpeering of his list, eats not the flats with more inpiteous haste than young Laertes, in a riotous head, o'erbears our officers. The rabble call him 'lord,' and, as the world were now but to begin, antiquity forgot, custom not known, the ratifiers and props of every word, they cry, 'Choose we, Laertes shall be king!' Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds, 'Laertes shall be King! Laertes king!"

Gibbs stared at the messenger in disbelief. _For pity's sake! The young pup's going to be here before this idiot messenger stops flapping his gums!_

"How cheerfully on the false trail they cry. O, this counter, you false Danish dogs!" Gertrude wailed in fear.

"The doors are broke!" Claudius shouted as the heavy wooden doors submitted to the pounding rabble and fell open with a splintering crack. A shouting crowd spilled over itself and into the room, and a few of the brawnier members had Gibbs disarmed and pinioned against the wall before the Master of Security could defend himself.

"Where is this king?" Laertes demanded, his blade-thin body quivering with rage. When his fevered eye swept the room and realized Claudius and Gertrude were alone, save for the unresisting Gibbs still backed against the wall, Laertes turned to the slavering mob with him. "Sirs, stand you all without!"

The crowd was out for blood and they didn't want to be kicked outside. "No, let's come in!" they shouted.

Laertes calmed them down. "I pray you, give me leave!"

Responding to the voice of his authority, the men as a group lowered their heads. "We will, we will." They began filing out, the only ones sticking around were the ones that had Gibbs subdued.

"I thank you," Laertes said to those departing. To those self-appointed to make sure Gibbs didn't interfere, Laertes ordered, "Keep the door!" Once everything was to his liking, Laertes turned his attention back on the cowering monarchs. "O, thou vile king, give me my father!"

Claudius went three shades paler and stammered without speech.

It was Gertrude that tried to be useful. Holding up a shaking hand, she gulped. "Calmly, good Laertes!"

Laertes wasn't going for it. As his cheeks purpled in rage, Gibbs' instinct kicked in and he tried to shake his guards and get to the King. All he got for his effort was a solid fist in his belly that doubled him up and put him, gasping, on his knees.

"What is the cause, Laertes, that thy rebellion looks so giant-like? There's such divinity doth hedge a king that reason can but peep to what it would, acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes, why thou art thus incensed. – Let him go, Gertrude! Speak, man!"

Shaking off the Queen's hand as she tried to calm him down, Laertes got right up in Claudius' face. "Where is my father?"

"Dead," Claudius admitted in a squeak.

"But not by him!" Gertrude threw in helpfully.

Gibbs groaned and sagged back against the wall as he tried to catch his breath. This had to be the worst interrogation he'd ever had a part in… and he'd been on the receiving end of some clinkers once or twice himself.

"How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with. To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, that both the worlds I give to negligence, let come what comes, only I'll be revenged most thoroughly for my father."

 _Laertes isn't kidding around here,_ Gibbs thought as he wrapped an arm around his aching gut. A noise out in the hallway bade him raise his head. His guards saw him move and readied another punch, but Laertes saw and waved for them to stand down. _Thanks for that, kid,_ Gibbs nodded to him grudgingly.

The door opened, and Ophelia wandered in. Gibbs caught a flash of Ziva in the hallway, and from what he could see, his agent had found the errant orphan and shepherded her towards her Boss. She now had to deal with the overeager revolutionaries outside who seemed to like the sight of her. Gibbs felt sorry… for them. They didn't have a clue as to what they were getting in to!

"O heat, dry up my brains!" Laertes moaned as he tried to take his sister in his arms. Ophelia drifted out of reach, humming cheerfully under her breath. "Tears seven times salt burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight till our scale turn the beam! O rose of May, dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!"

The Lady didn't even bat an eye at her brother. It was like she didn't even recognize him.

Laertes covered his face with his hands. "O heavens, is it possible a young maid's wits should be as mortal as an old man's life? Nature is fine in love, and, where 'tis fine, it sends some precious instance of itself after the thing it loves."

Ophelia's humming turned into a song, and while the tune was cheerful, the words were anything but. "They bore him barefaced on the bier, (hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,) and in his grave rained many a tear." She looked up, smiling at her brother, still without a shred of recognition. "Fare you well, my dove."

Laertes' cheeks were streaked with tears. "Hadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge, it could not move thus!"

Ophelia's expression grew scolding. "You must sing, 'A-down a-down' – and you, 'Call him a-down-a' – O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter!"

Gibbs tried to get to his feet, but the beefy men guarding him gave him a rough kick that sent him skidding back into the corner. When his head hit the wall, he didn't remember anything else.


	20. Act 4, Scene 6

**Act 4, Scene 6:**

McGee swallowed hard as he trotted up to Horatio. "M'lord?" he attempted.

The nobleman scholar turned to him, and there was curiosity in his polite nod.

"There are messengers, sire… They demand to speak to you… and only you."

"What are they that would speak to me?" Horatio questioned.

McGee let out a breath. "Seafaring men, sir. They say they have letters for you."

A hopeful light began to burn in Horatio's eyes. "Let them come in."

As McGee scurried off to fetch the messengers, he could hear Horatio muttering to himself, "I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet!"

McGee hoped so. After bringing the messengers back to Horatio, McGee hung around to learn what was going on. He wanted to be able to report back to Gibbs with information that would help his investigation. McGee had liked Old King Hamlet too.

"God bless you, sir," one of the sailors greeted Horatio.

"Let Him bless thee too," Horatio replied.

"He shall, sir, as it please him. There's a letter for you, sir. It came from the ambassador that was bound for England – if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is." He handed over the letter with a nod of respect.

Horatio read the letter aloud, and McGee started breathing faster. Prince Hamlet's ship had been overrun by pirates, and when the grappling lines drew the two ships up next to each other, the Prince had jumped across into the waiting arms of the pirates! Upon learning the identity of their new 'prisoner', they let the other ship go and promised to protect Hamlet, provided he did a good turn for them. Hamlet was summoning Horatio to come to him, after he allowed the sailors who delivered this note to pass some letters on to the King.

"Come, I will give you way for these your letters and do it the speedier that you may direct me to him from whom you brought them!" Horatio barked in excitement, leading the sailors out of the room at a jog.

McGee grinned to himself. Prince Hamlet was safe, and he had an earful of news to give to the Boss! If only he could find him!

Horatio whirled in the doorway, and waved for McGee to follow. Remembering that he was a messenger first, McGee leapt to follow. Now he'd be delivering messages to the King!


	21. Act 4, Scene 7

**Act 4, Scene 7:**

Trying to contain his trembling, McGee knocked on the door. He noticed with surprise that it was cracked and leaning on one hinge and there were sullen looking men lurking around the hallway outside of it. A few of them were nursing bruised jaws or painful ribs, and more than one spat out a curse on 'that she-devil'. McGee figured Ziva had been there… He tried to portray an image of control and authority as he rapped again on the wood, but couldn't help a sigh of relief when he heard the king call, "How now? What news?"

Squaring his shoulders, McGee strode into the room. "Letters, my lord, from Hamlet. These to your Majesty, this to the Queen."

"From Hamlet? Who brought them?" the King demanded.

McGee gestured through the door, a part of his mind wondering why the King was alone in the room without the Queen hanging on his arm or a guard lurking in the corner. _Where was the Boss, anyways?_ "Sailors, my lord, they say…"

The King cut him off by snatching the letters from his hand. "Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us!" he ordered to McGee.

McGee turned to leave, but noticed with a gasp that Gibbs was curled up on the floor in the dark corner of the room. Realizing that the King had probably forgotten him the second he dismissed him, McGee threw himself to his knees and gently shook Gibbs' shoulder. "Boss? Boss? Can you hear me?" he whispered in growing terror.

Gibbs groaned and shifted, finally prying one eye open. "McGee?"

McGee helped him sit up against the wall. "Boss, what happened?"

"Laertes and a few buddies didn't want me to interrupt his tea party with the King," Gibbs got out, wincing as he cradled an arm around his stomach. Realizing the King was still talking to said Laertes, Gibbs forced his mind to clear. "Report, McGee!

"Boss, Prince Hamlet's back in Denmark. Horatio just went to find him. I had to deliver some letters from the Prince to the King, and they're reading them now."

"The ship came back?"

McGee shook his head and gave him a summary of the letter. "No, Boss; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are still on their way to England with the ship. The pirates let Prince Hamlet go, I'm assuming."

A roar from Laertes broke into their conversation. "But let him come! It warms the very sickness in my heart that I shall live and tell him to his teeth, 'Thus didst thou!' "

The King's voice grew conspiratorial. "If it be so, Laertes (as how should it be so? How otherwise?), will you be ruled by me?"

"The King's got a plan," McGee noted in a whisper.

"You think, McGee? He's masterminded this whole thing from the beginning."

Laertes' capitulation had a condition. "Ay, my lord, so you will not overrule me to a peace."

"To thine own peace," the King corrected. "If he be now returned, as checking at his voyage, and that he mans no more to undertake it, I will work him to an exploit, now ripe in my device, under the which he shall not choose but fall; and for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, but even his mother shall uncharged the practice and call it accident."

McGee and Gibbs shared a long glance. "Uh-oh," McGee whispered.

"Yeah," Gibbs had to agree.

Laertes' eyes were alight with vengeful glee. "My lord, I will be ruled, the rather if you could devise it so that I might be the organ!"

"Can we arrest someone for murder if they haven't actually committed it yet?" McGee whispered to Gibbs.

"Not and keep our heads," Gibbs grumbled back. "The only person who could issue a warrant for his arrest is Director Polonius."

"Oops," McGee gulped.

Gibb's returning nod was grim. They kept silent as they listened in growing horror to the plans being cooked up before them. The King informed Laertes that a passing gentleman of Normandy had been bragging to the Court of Laertes' skill with a sword, and how Hamlet had been wild with eagerness to fence against his old friend. The King then suggested that they set up the duel so Laertes could, like any loving son should do to get revenge for his father, run Hamlet through and kill him.

"I will do it, and for that purpose I'll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank so mortal that, but dip a knife in it, where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare collected from all that simples that have virtue under the moon, can safe the thing from death that is but scratched withal. I'll touch my point with this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, it may be death."

"Who picks up souvenirs like that?" McGee wondered. "And how do you get them past security? 'Anything to declare?' 'Yes, I have this mountebank of poison so deadly it'll kill at the slightest scratch!' I can see that getting past Customs!"

Gibbs would have chuckled, had his own ribs not been killing him.

"Let's further think of this," the King agreed, "Weigh what convenience both of time and means may fit us to our shape. If this should fail, and that our drift look through our bad performance, 'twere better not assayed. Therefore this project should have a back or second that might hold if this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see…" He mused for a moment, muttering, "we'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings… I have it! When in your motion you are hot and dry (as make your bouts more violent to that end) and that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him a chalice for the nonce, whereupon but sipping, if he by chance escape your venomed stuck, our purpose may hold there…" He looked up as a scuffle was heard in the hallway. "But stay, what noise?"

The Queen rushed into the room, her gown tattered from where she'd ripped it in her haste. "One woe doth tread upon another's heel, so fast they follow. Your sister's drowned, Laertes."

"Wow, nothing like breaking the news gently," McGee snorted.

"Drowned? O, where?" Laertes wailed, dropping to his knees.

"There is a willow grows askant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream," the Queen began.

Gibbs crawled toward the open door, gesturing for McGee to follow him silently. "C'mon, you find DiNozzo. I'll get Ducky. We got a floater!"


	22. Act 5, Prelude to Scene 1a

**Act 5, Prelude to Scene 1a**

"Who'd think it be so hard to find a 'willow that grows askant the brook that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream'?" McGee demanded as the team trampled through the frosty riverbank.

Gibbs, his ribs still aching, wasn't in the mood to respond. He wasn't happy having to process this crime scene. He hated what was going on; he hated more that he was powerless to stop it. "Over here," he called, catching sight of Ophelia's nightshirt floating lazily in the river.

"Oh, you poor girl," Ducky sighed as he reached Gibbs' shoulder. "She was weaving herself a garland of flowers. How ironic that she could choose a flower called 'dead men's fingers'."

"What happened here, Duck?" Gibbs wanted to know.

Ducky's eyes were sad as they surveyed the scene. "I'm not exactly sure, Jethro."

Another familiar voice spoke up. "There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, as one incapable of her own distress or like a creature native and endued upon that element. But long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death."

"Abby?" Gibbs demanded. "What are you doing outside during the daylight?"

"Alas, then she is drowned," DiNozzo mourned, looking a little heartbroken.

"Drowned, drowned," Lady Ziva agreed sadly.

"Enough!" Gibbs barked. "DiNozzo! Help Ducky and Palmer get her out of the water. McGee! Sketch and gather evidence. Ziva! Interview the witness!"

"I'm a witness?" Abby realized with a start. "Cool! I mean..." She broke off when she found herself on the receiving end of one of Gibbs' dark glares. "Okay, okay... I was out here collecting herbs for my experiments when I heard her singing. I couldn't get over here fast enough when I heard the splash, and by the time I reached the water's edge, I knew it was too late. Strange for a person to drown so fast… Ducky, when you get her back to your basement, I want samples to test for drugging."

Gibbs once again felt a headache pounding behind his eyes. "Ducky, any evidence she was drugged?"

Ducky paused in the act of lifting the dead woman's shoulders clear of the water. "Judging from her blown pupils, the petechial hemorrhaging around her eyes, and the sharp scent coming from her mouth, I'd guarantee it."

"Abbs, I need you to find out where this poison came from. Cross match it against the poison that killed King Hamlet."

"You're gut's telling you Claudius is behind this too?" DiNozzo guessed.

Gibbs didn't choose to answer, instead helping Ducky wrap Ophelia in waterproof cloths and load her on the physician's cart. Ducky mounted the box beside his assistant Palmer, and took the reins.


	23. Act 5, Prelude to Scene 1b

**Act 5, Prelude to Scene 1b**

Gibbs stormed out of the King's rooms, murderous fury on his face. Ducky was right on his heels, looking for once like he wasn't going to stop his old friend's rage. "I can't believe him!" Gibbs growled.

"Neither can I, Jethro," Ducky spat. "Denying that poor girl the right to lie interred beside her father? Just because she, in the King's eyes, drowned herself?"

The King wouldn't listen to Ducky's report, flat out commanding the Physician to stop just before uttering the word 'Murder'.

"His decision had been made long before we found out about Ophelia's death," Gibbs decided. "He's got something up his sleeve."

"What are you going to do, Jethro?" Ducky asked with trepidation.

Gibbs came to an instant decision. "I'm going to find the Prince."

A grim smile pulled at Ducky's lips. "And I'm coming with you!"


	24. Act 5, Scene 1

**Act 5, Scene 1**

Gibbs led the way through the overgrown forest, slipping silently over the tangled roots and around the thorny vines like a wraith. Behind him, Ducky was having a difficult time keeping up… keeping his footing, as well. However, the Physician offered no complaints as he gathered his balance and trailed behind his silent friend.

"We're coming to the poorman's graveyard now," Ducky informed Gibbs as the trees began to thin out. "The King decreed that Ophelia's grave be here."

"Out in the middle of nowhere," Gibbs growled under his breath.

"The gravedigger for this plot is a cheerful fellow; I have no doubts but he'll look after her well enough," Ducky attempted to console him.

Gibbs could only stare at him and shake his head. "Like that's gonna make anyone feel better?"

Voices ahead made them fall silent and listen.

"How long will a man lie in the earth ere he rot?"

"That's Prince Hamlet," Gibbs breathed in relief. He crept forwards until the Prince and Horatio were in view. They were standing beside a fresh grave, staring at the bobbing head of the digger as he continued his work.

"Faith, if he be not rotten before he die…" came a cheeky voice from the depths of the hole, "…as we have many pocky corpses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in… he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year." He pulled a pair of femurs and a couple of skulls out of the ground and laid them upon the rim of the grave.

"Why he more than another?" Hamlet asked, fascinated with the growing collection of bones.

"Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your vile dead body."

"I told you this gravedigger was a cheerful sort!" Ducky chortled, enjoying his colleague's humor.

Gibbs' sigh almost gave away their position.

The gravedigger pulled another skull from the earth and handed it up to the Prince. "Here's a skull now hath lien you in the earth three-and-twenty years."

"Whose was it?" Hamlet asked, staring into the empty ocular orbs. Beside him, Horatio shivered with disgust.

"A vile mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it was?" the gravedigger teased.

Hamlet shook his head. "Nay, I know not."

The gravedigger's smile was fond. "A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! He poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once."

"Waste of a good wine," Ducky disapproved.

"This same skull, sir, was, sir, Yorick's skull, the King's jester."

"This?" Hamlet demanded, his eyes clouding with memories.

"E'en that," the gravedigger agreed solemnly.

Hamlet lifted the skull until it was eye-level. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath born me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is!"

Ducky nudged Gibbs with a teasing elbow, earning a questioning glance from his friend. "I'm not the only one who talks to dead bodies!"

"Ah, c'mon, Ducky!" Gibbs protested, unable to keep back a light smile.

Hamlet was still staring the skull in the eye socket. "Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?"

Gibbs closed his eyes, feeling suddenly old and tired. He looked at his friend, who seemed to be thinking the same thing, and he was grateful there was no need to put his thoughts into words. In their job, Mortality faced them all too often. Gibbs hoped he'd be remembered even after he'd been buried for 'three-and-twenty years'. He wasn't worried about Ducky; the man had a million friends, but Gibbs had nobody outside his own team.

"But soft, but soft awhile!" Hamlet interrupted everyone's thoughts. "Here comes the King, the Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?" He squinted into the darkness, a frown gathering on his face. "And with such maimed rites?"

Gibbs growled under his breath. Hamlet wasn't happy with the burial either, and he didn't even know it was his girlfriend in the coffin yet. He'd hoped to get to the Prince first and break the news to him like a soldier, but Hamlet's introspection into life and death had sidetracked everyone. He was more than a little taken aback when Hamlet and Horatio dove into the very same thick bushes to hide that he and Ducky had chosen. Horatio almost cried out in surprise, but Hamlet was quicker of mind and slapped a hand over his friend's mouth. Seeing as it was the hand that had been holding the skull, Horatio pushed him away and scrubbed furiously at his lips with the sleeve of his tunic.

"What ceremony else?" Laertes' voice demanded as the group came up to the grave. The gravedigger obligingly hopped out of the hole and took his place off to the side to watch the proceedings.

"That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark," Hamlet advised Gibbs.

With a nod and a shrug, Gibbs indicated that he was 'mark'-ing everything without the need for prompting.

"What ceremony else?" Laertes demanded again.

"Who's that, Duck?" Gibbs demanded as a stranger stepped forward to calm the young nobleman.

"He calls himself a doctor, but he's no more than a charlatan with a medical degree," Ducky spat out. "I couldn't bring myself to perform this duty, so they probably had to scramble to find him."

"Her obsequies have been as far enlarged as we have warranty. Her death was doubtful, and, but that great command o'ersways the order, she should in ground unsanctified been lodged till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her. Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants, her maiden strewments, and the bringing home of bell and burial."

"The King relented a little, probably for Laertes' sake," Gibbs mentioned to Ducky, trying to keep his voice soft enough so Hamlet didn't overhear.

"I can't imagine that poor girl having pottery and gravel rain down upon her; the King may be a piece of work, but perhaps he does have a bit of a heart," Ducky whispered back.

Gibbs shot a quick glance at Hamlet, who had blanched to the color of a dead fish's belly. "Don't think so, Duck…"

"Must there no more be done?" Laertes pleaded in outrage.

The solemn doctor shook his head. "No more be done. We should profane the service of the dead to sing a requiem and such rest to her as to peace-parted souls."

"The King was fortunate to find someone as heartless as this fool on short notice!" Ducky spat, forgetting who was crouched beside him.

Laertes apparently felt the same way. "Lay her in the earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, a ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling!"

"If that helps him sleep at night," Gibbs sighed sadly.

Beside him, Hamlet's face was wet with tears, and his hands shook as they clenched into the fabric of Gibbs' jacket. "What, the fair Ophelia?" he whimpered, begging Gibbs to tell him it wasn't true.

Wishing beyond anything that he could change the situation for the poor kid, Gibbs put his hand on the Prince's and gave him a sad nod. When the Prince crumpled in sorrow, Gibbs found himself pulling Hamlet up next to him, allowing the kid to cry on his shoulder.

"Sweets to the sweet, farewell!" the Queen grieved as she scattered flowers on the coffin in the grave. "I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, and not have strewed thy grave."

Hamlet wasn't the only one crying; Laertes was sobbing openly as he knelt over the lowered casket. "O, treble woe fall ten times treble on that cursed head whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense deprived thee of!" He jerked upright as the gravedigger picked up his shovel. "Hold off the earth awhile, till I have caught her once more in mine arms." To everyone's astonishment, he leapt into the grave, tugged the rough wooden board off of the casket, and lifted his dead sister into a tender embrace. Glaring up at the gravedigger, Laertes challenged, "Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, till of this flat a mountain you have made!"

"Why does 'The Quick and The Dead' sound so familiar?" Ducky whispered in Gibbs' ear. "I'll have to ask DiNozzo…"

Hamlet tore himself from Gibbs' awkward embrace and threw his weight forward, exploding out of the bushes and terrifying the King and Queen. "What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane!"

Laertes leapt from the grave in a single bound, making Gibbs jealous that his knees worked that way. "The devil take thy soul!" he screamed.

"Thou pray'st not well," Hamlet shot back, and the two launched into a deadly grapple. The reaction from the crowd was astonishing… The King and Queen clung to each other in terror, the quack of a doctor skittered behind the gravedigger as he raised his shovel to protect himself, and the other courtiers fled. Gibbs and Ducky leapt into the fray, attempting to break up the fight.

Laertes' desire to murder Hamlet in cold blood was obvious; he moved more like a trapped animal than a human being. His teeth gleamed in the dusky half-light as he snarled and snapped at his foe.

"I prithee take thy fingers from my throat, for though I am not splentitive and rash, yet have I in me something dangerous, which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!" Hamlet barked, trying to shake Laertes free.

"Pluck them asunder!" the King shouted.

"Working on it," Gibbs growled as Laertes bucked and snapped at him.

"Hamlet! Hamlet!" Gertrude was bawling.

"HEY!" Gibbs shouted in their ears, finally snapping them out of their animalistic struggle. He was grateful when Ducky caught Laertes around the biceps and helped wrench him clear. Ducky may have been older than both fighters, but Gibbs could always count on his buddy to get his back.

Horatio finally caught Hamlet and tugged him away. "Good my lord, be quiet!" Horatio soothed, trying to bring Hamlet back to his senses.

Hamlet strained against his friend's hands. "Why, I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag!"

"O my son, what theme?" Gertrude wailed, still frightened and cowering.

Tears again wetted the Prince's cheeks as he struggled to free himself from Horatio's grip. "I loved Ophelia! Forty thousand brothers could not with their quantity of love make up my sum! What wilt though do for her?"

"O, he is mad, Laertes!" the King exclaimed. Everyone flinched as DiNozzo and McGee pounded up to them, with Ziva on their heels. Taking one look at the situation, DiNozzo jumped in to replace Ducky, working with the Boss to hold their struggling charge, while McGee and Ziva backed Horatio up as Hamlet continued to rant and rave at Laertes. "Here you, sir, what is the reason that you use me thus? I loved you ever. But it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew, and dog will have his day!" Struggling free of his captors, Hamlet jerked his doublet back into place and stormed off into the darkness.

"I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him," the King begged, and Horatio took off like a shot to follow his friend.

When they were out of earshot and the Queen was busy weeping into her handkerchief, the King pulled Laertes aside. "Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech. We'll put the matter to the present push." He looked up as the Queen buried her head in his chest. "Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son." Turning back to Laertes, the King's eyes slitted. "This grave shall have a living monument. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; till then in patience our proceeding be."

As the trio headed back towards the castle, and the gravedigger bent himself to his toil, Gibbs brushed the dirt off of himself with angry swipes. "That went well," he informed the team with dripping sarcasm.


	25. Act 5, Scene 2

**Act 5, Scene 2**

Gibbs was in a foul mood, darker even than he'd ever remembered experiencing. The duel was set up, the rapiers were chosen, the whole court was in attendance, and Gibbs could do nothing to stop it. He paced the empty space behind the King's box in a fury, throwing off everyone's attempt to calm him down. He'd tried to get to Hamlet before this farce began, but the King had packed the hallways with fools that took up the Prince's time. Gibbs had taken the opportunity to go through the King's quarters, and what he'd found made him furious; he'd discovered Old King Hamlet's suit of armor, complete with a hook soldered on for hanging it on a zip-line. He'd found orders written in King Cladius's own hand for the Switzers, those lean and hungry assassins that Gibbs hated so much, to steal McGee's sound amplification device and to pretend to be the late King and mess with Hamlet's head. He'd found a poison that Abby confirmed was what killed King Hamlet and Ophelia both. He'd even found the funnel that still had a strand of King Hamlet's hair curled around it.

 _I've got everything I need to arrest him and throw him in the dungeon… but he'll take me and my team apart if I do._

The King stood and clapped his hands. "Set me the stoups of wine upon that table—if Hamlet give the first or second hit or quit in answer of the third exchange, let all the battlements their ordinance fire. The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath, and in the cup a Pearl shall he throw, richer than that which for successive kings in Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups, and let the kettle to the trumpet speak. The trumpet to the cannoneer without, the cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth, 'Now the King drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye."

 _What his he planning now? I don't trust this guy as far as I can throw him! He's drawing a lot of attention to this Pearl, waving it around like nobody's ever seen one before… With this guy's so-called subtly, my gut's going crazy!_

"Come on, sir." Hamlet said to Laertes, saluting him with his blade.

"Come, my lord." Laertes replied with a return salute.

Their swords crossed, and then flew fast and strong. The two fencers jumped and danced, their blades flicking in and out like tongues of serpents.

"One!" Hamlet crowed as his sword flashed against Laertes' body.

"No!" Laertes protested.

"Judgment!" Hamlet called.

Osric, the judge of the tournament, leaned in. "A hit, a very palpable hit!"

Laertes shrugged. "Well, again."

The King stood, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine. Here's to thy health." He took a deep draught of the wine, smacking his lips in satisfaction.

 _If he's drinking that wine, there can't be any poison in it,_ Gibbs thought in relief.

The King made a flourish with his hand, held up the pearl, then allowed it to fall into the beverage. "Give him the cup!" he ordered.

 _Then again…._

Gibbs tried to get to the front of the table and swipe the deadly goblet before anyone could be killed with it, but there were too many people in his way. Nobody wanted to yield for the Master of Security today; they cared more about a good vantage point for the fight then they did hacking off the intimidating soldier.

"I'll play this bout first. Set it by a while." Hamlet said, brushing the King off. To Laertes, he said, "Come!" and then attacked him once more. Gibbs breathed a sigh of relief… he had a few more seconds to try to grab that goblet.

"Another hit. What say you?" Hamlet crowed, brushing the sweat off of his face as he brought his sword up.

Laertes was showing signs of fear. "A touch, a touch. I do confess it."

The King was again on his feet. "Our son shall win!"

Gibbs paused to glare at the King. _He's only your son when you're trying to kill him? What is your problem?_ He was getting more nervous; despite his best effort, he couldn't reach the goblet with the deadly pearl in it.

The Queen was beaming with pride. "Here, Hamlet, take my napkin; rub they brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet."

Gibbs felt his heart stop… The Queen reached out, found the goblet with the pearl in it, and lifted it to her lips.

"Good madam," Hamlet replied in thanks to her encouragement.

"Gertrude! Do not drink!" Claudius barked so suddenly she almost dropped the cup. His expression was so severe as he reached to snatch the goblet away from her that it made her defensive.

 _She probably thinks he's mad that Hamlet's winning… She's right. But she's gonna be dead right if I can't stop her!_

"I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me!" Gertrude snapped back, anger at his apparent disfavor obvious in her scowl. She lifted the glass to Hamlet, and took a deep swallow.

The King sagged back into his throne. Gibbs could see his lips moving, "It is the poisoned cup. It is too late…"

"I dare not drink yet, madam—by and by." Hamlet said, keeping a wary eye on Laertes, who was gazing with growing horror at the scene.

"Come, let me wipe thy face," Gertrude crooned, tugging her handkerchief free and trying to dab her resisting son's face.

"My lord, I'll hit him now," Laertes whispered to Claudius.

The King didn't seem to have heard. "I do not think it…"

Laertes looked at Hamlet, who had finally submitted to his mother's ministrations, unaware that they would be the last he'd ever experience from her. "And yet it is almost against my conscience."

 _Good! Let this stupidity stop here!_ Gibbs begged silently.

It was not to be. Hamlet shook himself free of his mother, and turned to face his opponent. "Come, for the third, Laertes. You do but dally. I pray you pass with your best violence. I am afeared you make a wonton of me!"

 _He's not playing with you like you're a child, Hamlet… He's trying to kill you; both he and that traitor wearing your father's crown!_

That got Laertes' dander up. "Say you so? Come on!"

"Nothing neither way," Hamlet taunted, readying his sword.

"Have at you now!" Laertes cried, and the two fighters were once more at it.

They parried and slashed and jumped and ducked, stabbed and retreated and danced aside. Gibbs caught sight of DiNozzo watching the fight, and he tried to get his Lieutenant's attention to get him to stop them somehow, but DiNozzo wasn't in a position to see Gibbs' silent plea. Another brilliant riposte from Hamlet had Laertes ducking out of the way, but Hamlet's boot skidded on the floor that was slick with their sweat, and Laertes' sword darted in and caught his foe on the shoulder. A dark red scratch appeared on Hamlet's skin, and as the Prince stopped to assess the damage, it welled over and began snaking down his arm.

 _The mountebank of poison! Oh, no!_ He'd completely forgotten about it, what with the crime scene to process, the crazy funeral, the Prince weeping on his shoulder… _I meant to get into Laertes' quarters and get rid of that!_ Gibbs tried not to let regret overwhelm him, but he knew there was nothing he could do; if Laertes did put that poison on his sword, it was only a matter of time before Hamlet succumbed.

The fencers were at it again. Hamlet was pretty upset at getting scratched, so he doubled his efforts to get back at Laertes. During the scuffle, both men slipped, and the swords clattered out of their hands. The fight was now beyond just a fencing match; it was a brawl. They threw punches, grappled, and raked at each other until they found the weapons. When they struggled back to their feet, Gibbs noticed that Hamlet now held Laertes' sword, and he was pressing in an advantage. It wasn't long before Laertes was bleeding from a long scratch down his arm.

"Part them! They are incensed!" the King bellowed.

"Nay, come again!" Hamlet taunted to Laertes, who had stopped and was staring at the sword in his opponent's hand with sick dread on his face.

The Queen tottered off of the throne, crumpling into an empty heap on the floor.

Gibbs whirled to stare at her, then spun to read Hamlet's face. Realization was dawning on the Prince's countenance, and it was enough to make the rest of the grand hall fall silent.

"Look to the Queen there, ho!" Osric, the judge, shouted.

Horatio could tell something was terribly wrong. "They bleed on both sides… How is it, my lord?"

"How is it, Laertes?" Osric cried to the other combatant.

Laertes looked sick, and he staggered a little. "Like a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric." He fell to his knees, swaying as the poison swept through his body. "I am justly killed with mine own treachery."

 _Yeah, you're right… you are like a stupid bird that got caught in it's own trap,_ Gibbs thought to himself. He looked between the stricken fencer and the stricken King. "You know what… you're _both_ Idiots!" he informed them aloud.

"How does the Queen?" Hamlet demanded, stepping forwards. He swayed as well, and fear sparked behind his eyes.

"She swoons to see them bleed," the King tried to insist.

The Queen fought to lift her head. "No, no, the drink, the drink! O, my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poisoned!" With a shuddering gasp, she died.

"O villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked!" Hamlet cried, sending Osric dashing to slam the heavy doors. "Treachery! Seek it out!"

"It is here, Hamlet!" Laertes called out, his voice clear and strong though his body looked frail. The entire court turned to look at him, and he hung his head. "Hamlet, thou art slain. No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour's life. The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, unbated and envenomed. The foul practice hath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie, never to rise again. Thy mother's poisoned. I can no more. The King…" He broke off as his breath came in a ragged hitch. "The King's to blame…"

Hamlet spun to face his uncle/father. Gibbs noticed with a sinking heart that the turn wasn't graceful or coordinated, and Hamlet seemed to be having a hard time catching his breath. Forcing his eyes to focus, Hamlet fixed on his father's murderer. He held up Laertes' sword, the point glimmering red. An idea seemed to strike him. "The point envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy work!"

Moving much more quickly than someone about to die of poison should, Hamlet leapt up to the King's throne, dancing lightly over the body of his mother, and shoved the blade into Claudius' stomach.

"That'll leave a mark," DiNozzo mentioned at Gibbs' side, startling the Master of Security. Gibbs was grateful his lieutenant was there… not like he had an idea what they were going to do yet, but at least he was there.

The King squealed, falling backwards and off of the poisoned blade.

"Treason! Treason!" everyone in the room yelled.

"O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt!" the King wailed. However, everyone was fighting to get away from the treasonous dying lunatic King and the victimized dying lunatic Prince standing over him. The King looked at Gibbs in relief as the Master of Security fought to his side, but the relief died on his face when Gibbs opened his mouth.

"King Claudius, you are under arrest for the murders of King Hamlet, Lady Ophelia and Queen Gertrude, and the attempted murder of Prince Hamlet… You have the right to remain silent…"

Hamlet thought that was hysterical, but didn't wait for Gibbs to finish. "Here, thou incestuous, murderous Dane, Drink off this potion. Is thy pearl still here?" Hamlet demanded, scooping up the poisoned goblet and pouring the contents into Claudius' open mouth. The King tried to spit it up, but Hamlet's timing had been too good, and Claudius inhaled most of it.

"Follow my mother!" Hamlet screamed at him as the King choked, writhed, and finally expired.

Silence filled the hall for a moment as the crowd gazed on the scene in shock.

Laertes' wry chuckle was labored, yet somehow it filled the room. "He is justly served. It is a poison tempered by himself."

Hamlet tried to jump down from the throne, but his legs wouldn't listen to him anymore. He dropped the sword, and only after it hit the floor did Gibbs jump forwards to catch his dying Prince. At Hamlet's unspoken request, Gibbs half-carried him over to where Laertes lay.

"Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father's death come not upon thee, nor thine on me," Laertes begged. He reached a hand up to try and grasp his former friend's, but he collapsed onto the floor as his strength and life fled together.

The Prince had grown so heavy that Gibbs couldn't support him any more, and had to lower him to the floor beside Laertes. "Heaven make thee free of it. I follow thee…" the Prince mumbled to his dead opponent.

Gibbs knew Hamlet's time was close; the Prince's pulse was thready and shallow, and he couldn't even lift his own head. "I am dead… Horatio…." Hamlet gasped, and Gibbs gestured for Horatio to come over.

The Prince's head rolled to look over at his mother. "Wretched queen, adieu…" His eyes wavered upwards, flitting between Horatio and Gibbs as he faded out. "You that look pale and tremble at this chance, that are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death, is strict in his arrest), O I could tell you…but…"

 _I don't believe it… the kid's_ _dying_ _and he's still going to rattle off a soliloquy!_ Gibbs wanted to shoot something, wanted to pound something into dust, wanted to rip something apart with his own hands. It wasn't fair!

"Let it be," Hamlet smiled, as if reading Gibbs' thoughts.

Horatio dug his fingers into the Prince's tunic, unwilling to believe his eyes.

"Horatio, I am dead," Hamlet tried to get through to him. "Thou livest; report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied."

Horatio shook his head, tears splashing down over Gibbs and the Prince still cradled in his arms. "Never believe it! I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here's yet some liquor left!" He caught up the goblet that had rolled closer, intent upon licking the last of the poison from its depths.

Gibbs caught the goblet and stayed Horatio's hand at Hamlet's wordless plea. The Prince turned scolding eyes on his friend. "Give me the cup. Let go! By heaven, I'll have it." Hamlet's breath caught, and he took his old friend's hand. "O God, Horatio, what a wounded name, things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story."

Horatio let the cup slide out of his fingers, and Gibbs caught it before it could splash over Hamlet. Horatio was still weeping, but the sound of gunfire interrupted whatever he was going to say.

"What warlike noise is this?" Hamlet wondered, gasping as he tried to sit up. Gibbs supported him as best as he could into a sitting position, but the kid's deadweight was killing him.

Osric entered, looking terrified and self important at the same time. "Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland, to the ambassadors of England gives this warlike volley."

Hamlet's back arched in agony, and Gibbs had to let him slip back to the floor. "O, I die, Horatio! The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit… I cannot live to hear the news from England. But I do prophesy the election lights on Fortinbras; he has my dying voice. So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, which have solicited…" He broke off, gasping for breath but unable to pull anything into his lungs. "The rest… is silence…" he panted. With a final twitch, he went limp.

Gibbs felt for a pulse, knowing it was useless.

At the sorrow on his face, Horatio covered his face with his hands. "Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince…"

The doors burst open, accompanied by the sounds of many men marching.

"Why does the drum come hither?" Horatio asked Gibbs in a panic.

"As if I know?" Gibbs couldn't help but reply. He knew Horatio was stunned at losing his best friend, but blast it, Gibbs had just lost his Prince too!

The tall, painfully good looking, heavily muscled army general, Fortinbras, stalked into the room, followed by a handful of ambassadors and a complete color guard. He only allowed a flicker of surprise to cross his features as he surveyed the room and the dead bodies sprawled around it. "Where is this sight?"

Horatio gathered himself together, turning weary eyes to the general. "What is it you would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search."

Fortinbras gazed again on the bodies. "This quarry cries on havoc. O proud Death, what feast is toward in thine eternal cell that thou so many princes at a shot so bloodily has struck?"

The English ambassador stepped forward. "The sight is dismal, and our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing to tell him his commandment is fulfilled, that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Where should we have our thanks?"

 _You don't want much, do you?_

Horatio threw a rude gesture at the body of the former King. "Not from his mouth!" he snapped.

Gibbs almost smiled.

"Had it the ability of life to thank you," Horatio continued. "He never gave commandment for their death." When the English ambassador bridled in protest, Horatio cut him off. "But since, so jump upon this bloody question, you from the Polish wars, and you from England, are here arrived, give orders that these bodies high on a stage be placed to the view, and let me speak to the yet unknowing world how these things came about. So shall you hear of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause, and, in this upshot, purposes mistook fallen on the inventors' heads. All this I can truly deliver."

 _Yeah, it plays out like a scripted tragedy, all right,_ Gibbs had to acknowledge. _Somebody really ought to write this down…_

Fortinbras nodded. "Let us haste to hear it…"

 _Before everybody starts to smell…_

"…and call the noblest to the audience. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom which now to claim my vantage doth invite me."

 _Since there's nobody else around to stop you,_ Gibbs thought wearily.

Horatio nodded. "Of that I shall have also cause to speak, and from his mouth," he said, gesturing to the dead Prince in Gibbs' arms, "whose voice will draw on more. But let this same be presently performed even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance on plots and errors happen."

Fortinbras made a gesture to his color guard, and the soldiers snapped into position. "Let four captains bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal."

 _I like this new guy already_ , Gibbs had to admit as the four captains picked up the body of the dead Prince with reverence.

"And, for his right of passage, the soldier's music and the rite of war speak loudly for him," Fortinbras continued, and the musicians he had with him readied their instruments. "Take up the bodies," he ordered more of his men, who jumped to their assigned task. "Such a night as this becomes the field but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot."

As the honor guard raced outside and fired off their salute, Gibbs accepted DiNozzo's hand and got to his feet.

"Boss… They're all… The Prince too," DiNozzo began helplessly.

"Go get Ducky," Gibbs ordered, his voice threatening to break under his sorrow. "Oh, and DiNozzo?" When the Lieutenant turned back, Gibbs gestured to the new General, who was in the process of crowning himself King of Denmark. "Looks like we're working for Fortinbras anyways…"

"Yeah, Boss… I guess we are," DiNozzo returned with a sad smile.


	26. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"Hey, Boss? Boss?" DiNozzo prodded.

Gibbs opened his eyes, expecting to see the walls of Elsinore around him and the bustle of the new Monarch setting up shop. What he saw instead was Tony DiNozzo standing over him, rattling kernels in the bottom of a butter-smeared bowl. "Did you want more popcorn?"

Gibbs sat upright, his arms tingling with the pins and needles he expected to feel from the deadweight of the Prince that had been draped across him. "What?"

"We took a vote, and we're gonna put in the next film," Tony told him, starting to look amused at the Boss' confusion. "We decided on 'Much Ado About Nothing'. You seemed to enjoy 'Hamlet' so much, after all…"

Gibbs looked around. He was on his couch, in his living room. McGee and Ziva were curled up on the floor on beanbag chairs that one of them had brought over, arguing over possession of the last slice of pizza in the cardboard box before them. Tony was collecting empty cans and bottles as he waited for Gibbs to reorient himself and answer the popcorn question.

It had been a dream. The whole thing had been nothing but a dream. _How is that possible?_ Gibbs wondered to himself. It felt like he and his team had lived the whole thing… they'd _been_ there.

"Boss, I have to admit," McGee started, looking over his shoulder and grinning up at him. "I never would have taken you for a Shakespeare aficionado. Your insights into the characters were amazing!"

"Indeed, Jethro," Ducky asserted from the kitchen. The ME poked his head around the corner, and Gibbs could tell by the apron he was wearing that Ducky was whipping up one of his favorite desserts. "You had me surprised as well! I never knew you were a closet thespian!"

"Let's not get carried away," Gibbs warned.

Abby's husky giggle drowned him out. "I think it would have been amazing to live back there, just for a day or two… How _did_ they handle forensics? What _did_ they do at crime scenes? How _would_ they have handled a renegade Prince bent on murdering his step-father / uncle?"

" 'I said 'patricide', not 'uncle-cide'!" Palmer quoted from his spot by the recliner.

That earned him a shout of approval from DiNozzo. "Murder by Death! Great movie reference, Autopsy-Gremlin!"

Gibbs scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "Tony!" he barked, and the room fell silent. "An all night Shakespeare movie marathon? I'm glad I let you talk me into this."

The team grinned as they filtered back to their seats in the living room and settled in for the next installment. Gibbs accepted the bowl of popcorn that Tony held out to him and the bottle of beer that Abby handed over, firmly resolving to stay awake for the duration of the next movie.

Thank you for taking the time to read my first ever published fan fic. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.


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